May 29 2008
Countdown to Father’s Day! (Don’t forget your Pops this year.)
T-minus 16 days and counting! If you’re anything like me, you don’t remember this holiday until the Saturday before when your Mother asks what you’ve bought your father. Of course you don’t have anything, so you do what any good daughter would do and lie to Mom, hang up quickly, and run to the card store. The only thing left there are a few of those terrible cards that suggest Fathers are walking banks for their daughters. As for a gift, you can’t get him a tie, because even if dear old Dad did wear ties, that gift became a joke years ago. My perpetual fallback: a book. And what is the dad-est of Dad books? Books with maps. (Leave the not-asking-for-directions joke for your Mom.)
Here’s a few of my favorite books of or about maps:
Cartopraphia
Maps: Finding Our Place In The World
The Agile Rabbit Book of Historical and Curious Maps
Mapping Boston (also available in paperback)
Transit Maps of the World
Atlases of all kinds!
Psycho Geography
How To Lie With Maps
Maps of the Imagination: The Writer as Cartographer
Llalan specializes in all things Ohio, but has funny stories from all over the US and Canada, plus a few snort-inducing ones from Thailand. And not only does she read books from around the world, she also samples beers in as many languages as possible. Favorite style: the multi-national American Double IPA.
Those look like fine selections for a father…specifically your father.