Search results matching tags 'nonfiction' and 'travel'

Geeking Out with Ken Jennings and All Kinds of Maps

Shh_ImReading@evpl — Mon, 24 Oct 2011 22:09:00 GMT

Have you ever found a book you didn't even know you were looking for? That's how Maphead: Charting the Wide, Weird World of Geography Wonks by Ken Jennings felt to me. I didn't know I was looking for this book, but I am so glad I found it.

I love, or geek, if you prefer, maps and globes. I can remember spending indoor recesses with a couple of classmates and the pull-down maps in the classroom just looking and talking about what we were looking at. When I was nine years old and in the third grade, I had one of the best Christmases I can remember. Santa Claus brought me my very own globe and a puzzle that was also a map of the United States of America. It was wonderful. When I was 13 and in 8th grade, I got a stuffed globe that I named Globie. In high school, I had an enormous map of North America on my wall. Currently, I have a about a half-dozen globes around my house, including the one I got when I was nine and Globie, of course.

Enough about me, though, let's get on to this awesome book. Ken Jennings takes readers along for a tour of the Library of Congress' Geography & Map Division, to the National Geography Bee in Washington D.C. with Alex Trebek, to a map sale in London, to meet world travelers, on his own adventures in geocaching, and more. I enjoyed every chapter, as they were all packed with geographical goodness, but I especially enjoyed the Geography & Map Division chapter and the Geography Bee chapter. The Library of Congress' map collection sounds like a dream. I hope to maybe visit it the next time I'm in Washington D.C. The Geography Bee chapter was vaguely personal, since one upon a time, I was a school geography bee winner and could have (but did not) advance to the National Bee. It was interesting to get such a close look at what that would have been like. Of course, having read about the kids who make it that far, I also now have a pretty good understanding of why I did not make it that far, or even close, really. Another great chapter discussed the fun and importance of fantasy maps to go along with games and literature that take place in imagined worlds.

If you love maps, or if even if you used to love maps, or if you wonder how modern mapping technologies like GPS and Google Earth are likely to affect paper maps and us, the people who use maps, well, these are good reasons to pick up this book. I found Ken Jennings to be a fun writer and I now plan to read his first book, Brainiac: Adventures in the Curious, Competitive, Compulsive World of Trivia Buffs.

Ken Jennings is also the author of Ken Jennings' Trivia Almanac: 8,888 Questions in 365 Days. Maphead is available as an unabridged audiobook on CD, read by Kirby Heyborne.

Go Outside!

Shh_ImReading@evpl — Sat, 20 Mar 2010 17:23:00 GMT

It's springtime! Time to leave the house and enjoy the outdoors! Two recent books you should know about if you're planning on going further than the park down the street are Botanic Gems: Indiana Public Gardens, Including Greater Chicago, Dayton, Cincinnati & Louisville by Alan McPherson and The Complete Guide to Kentucky State Parks by Susan Reigler.

Botanic Gems includes more than 40 gardens in or near Indiana. Before this book, I had no idea that there are so many public gardens in Indiana! There are color photographs and maps for each location. The book includes Evansville's own Mesker Park Zoo & Botanic Garden.

The Complete Guide to Kentucky State Parks is truly complete. The parks are covered in regional sections: north central, south central, eastern and western. The parks closest to the Evansville area are in the western section, which includes Henderson's John James Audubon State Park, a favorite of my family. Kentucky State Parks fall into three categories: resort, recreation & historic sites. Each regional section in the book begins with a great chart that breaks down the parks vertically by those three categories, and the going across, by features like park acres, lake acres, lodge & dining room, cottages, campgrounds, golf, marina, swimming, trails, tennis courts, museums, etc. Following the chart, each park in the section gets its own write-up with photographs.

These books are great resources if you're looking for some outdoor fun!

Double Take worth a look

myzticrhythmz@evpl — Fri, 11 Dec 2009 15:13:00 GMT

You're walking down the street and a legless man on a skateboard zooms by. Your first reaction--shock? disgust? pity?

Welcome to Kevin Michael Connolly's world.

Author of the recent memoir Double Take, Connolly was born without legs. Instead of being institutionalized or coddled, Connolly's parents allowed him the freedom to experience life and grow into a remarkable young man. He attended public school, made friends and got into the usual high school escapades (such as dousing a parade crowd with permanent red dye), became a professional skier, and graduated from Montana State University with degrees in film and photography.

On a trip abroad, Connolly began paying attention to the reactions he received from the people he passed on the streets. As a kind of catharsis, he began to photograph passersby. These photographs became the basis for an exhibit, The Rolling Exhibition, as well as this book, Double Take.

Connolly brings his own unique voice to this work, and it is wonderful to read. The prose is clear & direct, without being maudlin. There are moments of disappointment and sadness, but they are never dwelt on for long. As he finally reaches the limit of his frustration with people staring at him and starts firing back (with his camera), Connolly realizes through his photos the impact his appearance has on others. This awareness, along with a visit to Sarajevo where his leglessness is not out of the ordinary among Bosnian war survivors, suggests a burgeoning maturity and selflessness.

Be sure to check out the author's promotional trailer for Double Take, as well as a feature ABC's 20/20 did on Connolly in 2007.

It will be interesting to see where Kevin Connolly's skateboard takes him next, and what he will show us on the way.