The Encyclopedia of Mysterious Places
Robert Ingpen and Philip Wilkinson
Barnes & Noble Books
Nonfiction, History
***
DESCRIPTION: From all corners of the globe and across a wide swath of history and prehistory, a number of archaological wonders and puzzles - from legendary cities to confounding relics of lost cultures - are discussed and illustrated here.
REVIEW: Another bargain-shelf gamble, I bought it hoping for inspiration. Unfortunately, this is a case of the subject matter being far more interesting than the presentation. The articles are sketchy at best and classroom-textbook boring at worst, and the illustrations are sometimes maddeningly obscure, choosing to depict a random artifact rather than a coherent map and failing to highlight what the text claimed were the chief curiosities about several structures. Many of the cities and structures mentioned I hadn't heard of, except perhaps vaguely. Instead of walking away knowing more about them, mostly I walked away wishing I'd bought a better book. If nothing else, though, it succeeds in reminding readers that there is far more we've forgotten about our own history than we like to admit.
You might also enjoy:
Abandoned Places(Lesley and Roy Adkins, Nonfiction - A collection of lost cities and temples around the world)
Anatomy of the Castle (John Gibson, Nonfiction - The history of Old World castles)
The Encyclopedia of the Ancient Americas (Jim Green, Fiona Macdonald, Philip Steele, and Michael Stotter, YA Nonfiction - A look at ancient American cultures and civilizations)
The Libyco-Berber Alphabet (Bob Idjennaden, Nonfiction - An overview of one of the earliest known alphabetical writing systems)
The Maya: Life, Myth and Art(Timothy Laughton, Nonfiction - The history and culture of the Mayan civilization)
Mysterious Places (Jennifer Westwood, editor, Nonfiction - A collection of mystifying archaeological sites)
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