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lady_bountiful's review
dark
informative
sad
3.0
Maps and layout are beautiful, but the author is unremittingly dour and negative. I did not need to know rapes were committed on which island. Disappointing.
Content Warnings
Minor: Animal death, Slavery, Abandonment, Violence, Murder, Colonisation, Rape, and Confinement
chad_vinny's review against another edition
adventurous
hopeful
informative
mysterious
reflective
sad
medium-paced
5.0
heidihaverkamp's review against another edition
4.0
This book is a nice "get-away' - all these tiny forgotten islands and strange stories or facts associated with them. Still, any fantasies of escape are quickly dashed by the harsh realities of these stark places...
velvetbarnes's review against another edition
informative
reflective
fast-paced
5.0
I’ve read this many times, and it always inspires me - so many stories I want to investigate further!
lisawhelpley's review
5.0
I absolutely loved this book. I read a page, examine the map, and then Google images of the island. Fascinating.
nababbo's review against another edition
5.0
Per ogni isola una pagina per la storia che la riguarda e una per la sua rappresentazione cartografica, il tutto in una cornice arancione e celeste.
Per innescare l'immaginazione e la curiosità non serve altro.
Per innescare l'immaginazione e la curiosità non serve altro.
ridgewaygirl's review
5.0
And thus the width of a motorway is shown to scale, a large city in Germany is depicted with the same square symbol used for one in China, and a bay in the Arctic Ocean shines in the same blue as one in the Pacific because they share the same depth. But the icebergs towering in the Arctic Ocean are ignored.
Geographical maps are abstract and concrete at the same time; for all the objectivity of their measurements, they cannot represent reality, merely one interpretation of it.
This is the ultimate appetizer for map heads and globe spinners. A random collection subtitled Fifty Islands I Have Never Set Foot On and Never Will, it delivers exactly that; a series of two-page spreads with a map on the right hand page and a story about the island on the other side, along with the distances to the nearest landmasses and a timeline of the island's history. Each island is drawn to the same scale, so some islands are thumb-sized, sitting in the middle of the blue sea, and others fill much of the page. Schalansky has published previous works about typography and graphic design and that shows in the simply beauty of this book. There is not a single discordant note, unless it is that there are only fifty islands represented. I could have spent many more happy evenings with this book, if only there were more islands.
Geographical maps are abstract and concrete at the same time; for all the objectivity of their measurements, they cannot represent reality, merely one interpretation of it.
This is the ultimate appetizer for map heads and globe spinners. A random collection subtitled Fifty Islands I Have Never Set Foot On and Never Will, it delivers exactly that; a series of two-page spreads with a map on the right hand page and a story about the island on the other side, along with the distances to the nearest landmasses and a timeline of the island's history. Each island is drawn to the same scale, so some islands are thumb-sized, sitting in the middle of the blue sea, and others fill much of the page. Schalansky has published previous works about typography and graphic design and that shows in the simply beauty of this book. There is not a single discordant note, unless it is that there are only fifty islands represented. I could have spent many more happy evenings with this book, if only there were more islands.
tom_green's review
Snippets from the not-so-distant history of 50 islands that (mostly) survived colonisation. The form and atmosphere of the book is interesting. It is a fusion of a geographical atlas, selected historical facts about the islands and the author's own, catchy (even though mostly anthropocentric) interpretation of these facts.
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Čriepky z nie až tak dávnej histórie 50 ostrovov, ktorým sa (väčšinou) podarilo prežiť kolonizáciu. Zaujímavá je forma a atmosféra knihy. Ide o zlúčenie geografického atlasu, vybraných historických faktov o ostrovoch a vlastnej, pútavej (i keď väčšinou antropocentrickej) autorkinej interpretácie týchto faktov.
„Jejich svět je sice šedivý, ale stále dokola zdůrazňují, že vidí věci, které jsou ostatním skryty, netušenou různorodost jasů a tónování. Stále znovu sa rozčilují nad pošetilými řečmi o nádheře barev, které – v jejich očích – jen odvádějí od podstatného: od bohatství tvarů a stínování, struktury a kontrastů.“
„Jejich svět je sice šedivý, ale stále dokola zdůrazňují, že vidí věci, které jsou ostatním skryty, netušenou různorodost jasů a tónování. Stále znovu sa rozčilují nad pošetilými řečmi o nádheře barev, které – v jejich očích – jen odvádějí od podstatného: od bohatství tvarů a stínování, struktury a kontrastů.“