When I was about nine years old & had just learned to ride a bicycle, my clever parents bought me a cleverly illustrated book about how to read the British Ordnance Survey maps, and then they stuck the local one-inch sheet on my wall. Ever since then, I have loved maps.
I told The Loved One about this quite recently, having been spotted cruising the highways of Utah and Arizona on the internet, and hoarding downloaded maps of places we've been in the My Pictures files.
As an unforeseen consequence, my Late Christmas Present has just arrived.
It is The Map Book, edited by Peter Barber, published by Weidenfeld & Nicolson in 2005. It is big, it is glossy, it is intelligent. I am in one kind of heaven.
Isn't she lovely ? Eat your hearts out, lesser mortals !
