Andrew DeGraff

19 chapters giving full colour maps as visual representations of famous stories, poems, and autobiographies. Definitely appreciated more if you read the books depicted first. There were a few I haven't read, but the ones I had read I particularly appreciated. The books covered are: The Odyssey, Hamlet, Robinson Crusoe, Pride and Prejudice, A Christmas Carol, Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass an American Slave, Moby Dick, A Narrow Fellow in the Grass, Around the World in Eighty Days, Huckleberry Finn, A Report to an Academy, The Library of Babel, The Lottery, Invisible Man (Ellison), Waiting for Godot, A Good Man is Hard to Find, A Wrinkle in Time, Watership Down, and The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas. I was inspired to read Charles Dickens and Emily Dickinson from this book.… (more)

I received this book for free from the publisher (Quirk Books) in exchange for an honest review.

I really liked this book. The idea behind it is so fun! The book consists of maps from 35 different movie worlds. Some of the movies featured include, Jaws, Star Wars, Indiana Jones, Jurassic Park, Clueless, and Guardians of the Galaxy. The maps are also not your typical flat ones. They are more three dimensional and are reminiscent of bus/subway maps because of the characters’ paths that run throughout them.

Artistically, each map is stunning, You can tell so much work was put into each one. There is so much detail in each map. It’s really amazing.

The essays that accompanied each map were incredibly insightful in its analysis. The essays don’t necessarily correlate to the map; they just talk about the film in general. I also really liked the writing style of the essays. They were easy to read, concise, and flowed nicely.

My one issue with this book is the size of the maps. Even though they take up a whole page, the maps are still too small to fully appreciate. Some parts are made bigger which helps, but it’s still not enough to gain the entire experience. You would need a magnifying glass to see all the little details. In person, the maps would be glorious, but in the book they fall a bit flat.

Together, the essays and the maps create a beautiful coffee table book that will make you want to re-watch the movies featured.… (more)