Thursday, August 25, 2016

The Latest Oz Reading

I wrapped up my latest round of Oz reading with Strange Maps by Frank Jacobs. This is one that has actually been kicking around the house for a while, because we got a complimentary copy when it first came out. You see, while compiling it, Jacobs found my website and the maps of Oz on it, and asked for permission to use it. I told him the map was public domain (it's one of the endpapers from Tik-Tok of Oz), so he didn't need my permission, but that I'd also be glad to provide a high resolution scan. Sure enough, in the chapter on "Literary Creations", there is the map of Oz and the surrounding countries. (What this chapter also needs is Pauline Baynes excellent map of Narnia, but it wasn't included, I suspect for rights reasons as most of the maps in this book are in the public domain.) Anyway, the book is an outgrowth of Jacobs' blog of the same name, and there are some unusual maps here. Some are just looking at our world from another perspective, some are more fanciful, and some just make you scratch your head, like the clouds that look like the British Isles. But it's all in fun, especially for fans of maps and geography. Unfortunately there is a lot more white space in this book than there really should be, and many of the maps are reproduced so small that they're hard to discern any details. Other than my modest little contribution, the only Oz connection I found was a connection to Wicked in a of the history of the American musical based on the famous London tube route map. So if you are just interested in getting this book as an Oz fan, I recommend getting something else. But if this is the sort of thing you'd enjoy anyway, by all means, take a look!

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