Interesting book, about geography but more about place and how important it is to humans to have a place they feel an attachment to. I have long thought borders ridiculous, why should one person have the power to prevent another person from going somewhere, provided they are not harming anyone. The author may have convinced me that without them, not onlyis there anarchy, but threre is less reason to go anywhere,the uniqueness and history go with the sense of place . Still thinking about that. ( )

Academic and overwritten! Returned to the library.

Alas.

This was just a really fantastic book. Some parts dull, some parts memorable, all parts fascinating. The concept of studying the importance of place was just genius to begin with. Add in a very thorough working over of most the world's geography, and I was just intrigued and inspired to up my smart-girl game.

Several stories really stood out to me, opening my eyes to places and ideas of places I'd never realized existed. I didn't realize countries sometimes designated a small portion of land to the rulership of another country temporarily, as was done by the Canadian government in 1943 so Princess Margriet could claim Dutch citizenship despite being born in Ottawa. Pumice rafts, the LAX RV community, a cruise ship called The World---all these stories just fascinated me!

There were some very interesting thoughts about simulated world-building games like Minecraft and how they help us create a sense of den building. Maybe this is why I loved FarmVille so much. I thought Part 5: Spaces of Exception was particularly interesting, if disconcerting. The concept of "non-places", cells with springs installed in the floors, the lengths gone to when disorienting a prisoner---really helped me see how important a sense of place is.

My favorite quote from the story was this one discussing the cons of open borders: "...and yet where, in a borderless world, could we escape to? Where would it be worth going?" ( )

I'm a bit of a lite geography nerd sometimes, and this book was right up my proverbial street. Armchair travel.

It provides descriptions of places such as Bir-Tawil, an unwanted strip of land between Egypt and Sudan (both countries claim it belongs to the other), hidden cities under Cappadocia, secret closed Russian cities, and more seemingly-mundane places like the island between two motorways in the author's neighbourhood. Surprisingly, there were many I didn't know about already (but also plenty I did, of course). There's also discussion of placehood - what makes a place? why are they meaningful? and so on.

The chapters are also bitesize, so it was perfect for idle reading when I had a few spare moments. ( )

Some of the 47 sketches of "place" in this volume fascinated me, some left me bored. But the underlying concept, that there is a unique human understanding, and desire for, "place" is a very thought-provoking concept. ( )