Issue #0

On the Map

Why the World Looks the Way it Does

Plot

Maps have the most amazing stories—and Simon Garfield is the perfect author to tell them. This is a book that will inspire mapophiles but engage even those of us who stare blankly at an OS pathfinder's hieroglyphs. Just as Garfield found the magic in fonts, here he creates compelling narratives on everything from the challenge of mapping the oceans tospellbinding treasure maps to the naming of America, from Churchill's crucial war maps to the lay-out of a Monopoly board, from crime maps to music maps, from rare map dealers to cartographic frauds. En route, there are 'map-break' tales on Michelin and railway maps, how to fold a map, maps of places that never existed, a London A-Z from 1677 and the weirdness of videogame mapping. On the Map will explain where we've been, how we got there and where we're going.