ATLAS OF VANISHING PLACES, great travel-guide gift that was the Illustrated Book of the Year - Edward Stanford Travel Writing Awards

ATLAS OF VANISHING PLACES: The Lost Worlds as They Were and as They are Today (Unexpected Atlases series)
TRAVIS ELBOROUGH; Cartography by Martin Brown
White Lion Publishing (non-affiliate Amazon link)
$15.99 trade paper, available now

Rating: 4.5* of five

The Publisher Says: Maps offer us a chance to see not just how our world looks today, and how it once looked. But what about the places that have vanished from modern atlases? With beautiful maps and stunning photography, Travis Elborough takes you on a voyage to all corners of the world in search of the lost, disappearing and vanished.

2020 WINNER OF THE EDWARD STANFORD TRAVEL ILLUSTRATED BOOK OF THE YEAR AWARD

Discover unusual and secret places that have disappeared from modern atlases, and revel in imagining what the world once looked like. Award-winning author Travis Elborough takes you on a fascinating voyage to all corners of the world in search of the lost, disappearing and vanished.

Unearth ancient seats of power and long-forgotten civilizations through the Mayan city of Palenque; delve into the mystery of a disappeared Japanese islet; and uncover incredible hidden sites like the submerged Old Adaminaby, once abandoned but slowly remerging.

With beautiful maps and stunning colour photography, Atlas of Vanishing Places shows these sites as they once were, together with how they look today—it’s a travel guide, a modern atlas and a passage through geography like no other: travel writing has rarely been so inspiring.

I RECEIVED A DRC FROM THE PUBLISHER VIA EDELWEISS+. THANK YOU.

My Review: I love the idea of travel more than the reality of it. My disabilities aren't forgiving of the physical exertion of my body that travel requires. A book like this one is a grace note in a more restricted life than most are required to lead. I'm glad that I could go on these historic-site voyages with the eloquent guidance of Author Elborough.

The Table of Contents is the clear road map of where we'll be going. It's always worth a close look, to gauge your giftee's interest in the book's direction.

Vanished Port-Royal, Jamaica:

A modern city submerged by an earthquake? Cool beans, four hundred years later. The tragedy no longer stings but the place is a fascinating reminder of what can happen to human places when the planet shrugs its shoulders.

The ruins of Mohenjo-Daro in modern-day Pakistan, on the dried-up course of the ancient Indus River:

The Indus Valley civilization is deeply fascinating if very underknown in the US, and the global north generally. Comparatively little attention gets paid to it, partly because it had the misfortune to be uncovered at the same time King Tut's tomb was dominating world archaeological news. Lacking gold "treasures" and charismatic stone statuary, it simply failed to gain traction. It's never recovered in the world's attention. It is so much older than other urban centers, and well-preserved because the Indus River dried up millennia ago, so no one ever came along to reuse the land on which it stands.

Examples of Author Elborough's agenda...places vanished from our collective memory and yet still present, more or less, to be visitable. Armchair travel is, for me, the best kind. The fact that these are all places with really intriguing history attached to them is a huge plus to elderly me as a reader.

Who in your gifting circle needs this? Who needs an escape from where they are, but can't do it in body?

Here's a great value-for-dollar way to help them.

365 GAYS OF THE YEAR (Plus 1 for a Leap Year): Discover LGBTQ+ history one day at a time, and enjoy the art on the trip!

365 GAYS OF THE YEAR (Plus 1 for a Leap Year): Discover LGBTQ+ history one day at a time
LEWIS LANEY (illus. Charlotte MacMillan-Scott)
White Lion Publishing
$24.95 hardcover, available now

Rating: 4.5* of five

The Publisher Says: SHORTLISTED FOR THE BRITISH BOOK DESIGN AND PRODUCTION AWARDS 2023

A fun and fascinating compendium of LGBTQ+ icons, one for every day of the year, and a celebration of queer history—or as RuPaul would say; Herstory!

Discover your queer hero and learn something new every day with 365 Gays of the Year, an accessible and fun introduction to LGBTQ+ history through the people that made it.

Carefully curated and thoughtfully researched, author Lewis Laney assigns a person or group of note to each day of the year to form the ultimate LGBTQ+ hall of fame.

Legendary queer icons such as Marsha P Johnson and Freddie Mercury sit alongside lesser known but equally important names such as activist Renée Cafiero, blood donor Barbara Vick, and Sappho the lesbian poet (who was doing her thing in 570BC).

All have contributed amazing achievements to the LGBTQ+ story. Each month also features one ally—inspiring heterosexual people who have all contributed something significant to the lives of the LGBTQ+ community. People like Elizabeth Taylor who “brought AIDS out of the closet and into the ballroom—where there was money to be raised”.

Each entry comprises a short biography plus a brief explanation about why that celebratory date represents an important milestone.

Lewis brings international figures to life (famous and lesser-known) with his witty and uplifting prose which are peppered with little-known facts and accompanied by bright illustrative portraits from the hugely talented Charlotte MacMillan-Scott.

This witty, unique celebration of queer history promises to inspire and empower readers with its wealth of bright stars.

I RECEIVED A DRC FROM THE PUBLISHER VIA EDELWEISS+. THANK YOU.

My Review: What a wonderful time this really is. This book, celebrating the existence of, success within, and growth of the great haters' favorite shibboleth: Them Disgustin' Queers, exists and so proves their point for them. We, the queers, are everywhere!

How awful for their ugly little selves. The book tells anyone interested about the success of:

...at bringing stories about us, and stories we are major parts of, into the world;

...at making the stories real to millions;

...at bravely, and without a map to success or even a hint of what success would look like, bearing witness to intolerance's horrible consequences;

...at living the awful truth of talent denied Because You Are You;

...at embodying the immutable truth the great haters know and eagerly desire to enforce: SILENCE = DEATH

So. To anyone who's been made to feel uncomfortable, unwelcome, unheard, unfocued-on, unvalued during my #PrideMonth blogging about QUILTBAGgery: Good. Now you know what your (in)action costs me and my QUILTBAG brethren and sistern. Take it in. Feel it.

And then reach out and do better, now that you know better. People you Other aren't obligated to meet you more than halfway; even at all. In my time trying to shed my vast, unconsidered racism and the jaw-dropping privilege I derive from it, I've learned some people will choose not to see me as the one making an effort but one battening on privilege. Those people have a valid point and an unassailable position. This effort I'm making isn't about me.

It's about changing one part of a whole that badly needs to change, and permaybehaps convince one or two others to join my effort. Consider this your altar call, religious christians; your summons in faith, all religious folk of all traditions, to live the Golden Rule.

Happy Pride Month!