Brilliant Maps for Curious Minds bills itself as a reference book. However, it is much more interesting than that. It contains 100 maps containing intriguing geographic and demographic facts shown on, of course, a map.

For example, there is a map of the world with countries colored based on their percentage of immigrants. Surprisingly, Canada has many more than the US. I also liked that on the average female/male height worldwide maps, it appears cold weather, or being Australian, is correlated with tallness. My overall impression is that except for the snow, Canada is the best country to live in as an expatriate. Maybe global warming will fix that issue.

Brilliant Maps for Curious Minds is an interesting book. However, I would recommend a good knowledge of where different countries are on a world map. Most of the maps do not label the countries. I had to look one up online to realize the big island northeast of Canada was Greenland. I did receive a D in geography in middle school so maybe that is just my problem.

I’m not sure how much of a reread value this book will have. However, it would make a great coffee table or doctor’s waiting room book. It would also be perfect for Guinness Book of Records fans or trivia fans in general. 4 stars!

Thanks to The Experiment and NetGalley for a copy in exchange for my honest review even though I had to buy my own copy since theirs didn’t work.

Fascinating Facts!
Thanks to Granta Books, The Experiment and NetGalley for the opportunity to read and review Brilliant Maps for Curious Minds: 100 New Ways to See the World by Ian Wright.
Sections include people and populations, politics, power, and religion, culture and customs, friends and enemies, geography, history, national identity, crime and punishment, and nature. This book is full of maps, of course, but also trivia. The author has created maps for just about everything you can possibly think of, such as what countries drive on the wrong side of the road, generate nuclear power, population comparisons and some I’ve never thought of or known about, like which countries use a comma or point to separate decimals. I had no idea that anyone used commas as a decimal separator. The map of countries showing McDonald’s is jaw-dropping since McDonald’s restaurants are almost everywhere in the world! Longest place names fascinated me as well as the map showing Vikings’ raids and settlements. The weirdest map to me is of the world’s time zones which zig-zags everywhere. Brilliant Maps promises to be an interesting book and it delivers, 5 stars!

3/5 - Liked it.

Unfortunately, it is difficult for me to give an accurate impression of the book, because the advance digital copy did not render properly on my reader. Many of the maps did not fit on the screen, or had gradation which was too subtle for me to be able to distinguish patterns within the maps.

However, from what I was able to read, I found this book quite interesting. The maps are broken up thematically. Some of the maps are meant to amuse (I particularly liked the map displaying which country has no McDonald's) whereas others are thought-provoking and adjust our expectations of the world (I was shocked to find out that all of Australia has a smaller population than metropolitan Tokyo!). Some maps flip our expectations of equality - for example, we tend to view men and women as equal, but most countries have never elected a woman as a top government official, and only 64 countries have done so in the last 50 years.

I may have rated this book higher had I been able to see more of the maps accurately. Moreover, I do not feel that I can post my review to Goodreads, as there were so many pages I could not properly see. Nonetheless, this is a book I would definitely check out from the library to give it a second shot in the future. The concept is very interesting to me.

I thought it was interesting and educational. I showed it to my niece and nephew to try to get them interested in learning.

Fascinating and diverse; this book will appeal not just to people who enjoy geography, but also people who enjoy trivia. I am a visual learner and I was riveted by every page.

Eclectic collection of maps

I enjoyed this book. Most of the maps were thought-provoking, but some were just fun trivia. I didn’t like the first three maps where European countries were overlaid on areas of the Americas with equal populations and vice versa, and how the North American population fit into Europe. After these maps, the book picked up, but I felt that there was no cohesion between the maps; that no story was being told. Nonetheless, the book was a fun read.
Disclosure: I received a complimentary copy of this book via Netgalley for review purposes.

I was not able to get this pdf to open. I love the title and the concept and was really curious to see what this book was about.

If you are an Infographic “freak”, someone who loves to learn facts, or just someone who likes beautiful graphics especially maps, you need to get this book. Ian Wright has built off his wonderful website to put together a fascinating assortment of informative world maps. The maps are grouped together in chapters ranging from the normal topics of Politics, Power and Religion to creative topics like Crime and Punishment. This is not only a great book to set out on your coffee table as a conversation starter in your own home, but would make a great gift!

This is a presentation of different sets of statistical data on a world wide basis, that can then be used to compare on a country-by-country comparison. I found some useful such as amount of Forestation or of certain crops. Others like where North Korean Embassies are or MacDonald's seem superfluous.

The Brilliant Maps (which are self-named) could be useful to some and not to others, depends on you point of view.

Zeb Kantrowitz zebsblog@blogspot.com

I enjoyed a lot of what was in this book and found the various demographics fascinating.
Learning new things is always fun!
I do wish that the maps had been a bit more distinct in the presentation.
Many of the pages had 3-4 versions of one colour when several completely different colours would have been much easier to absorb.
Also I found it a bit annoying that the countries were not labelled on most of the pages.
Slight inconvenience to have a second map up on google and flip between the two.
Thank you NetGalley and The Experiment for my DRC.

This book is a really interesting and valuable resource. Ian Wright has broken down maps of the world with different informational statistics on each one. These statistics range from women leaders to strongest growing religions. My favorite is the first few maps showing the population size comparisons with European countries and the United States. The perspective given on global issues that you find in these maps is astounding. I am appreciative of Ian Wright's work in compiling all of this information and putting it out there for the rest of us in a fun to look at book. I will absolutely be returning to this book for information and reference.

This was a fascinating and fun book that exceeded my expectations. While I expected some interesting little infographic types of maps like causes of death by country (none of those, surprisingly), there were so many really interesting maps that I never would have thought to look for. The world map of all the countries who have not been invaded by the United Kingdom was shockingly on point, while others were fascinating like seeing the map of what would be the Mongol empire with today's countries. You can see things like the death penalty, locations of McDonalds, states where Americans think global warming will affect them, average hours of sunlight, countries where people drive on the left or the right side of the world and on and on.

The book is divided by themes like history, culture, geography and history. This would make a great gift, and I may give it to one of my kids or my husband this year. It would also be a great library pick for "strewing" and inspiring some great homeschool investigations.

I read a temporary digital ARC of this book for the purpose of review.

This is a book filled with different maps featuring a wide range of subjects. Some of them are straight up-fun, but many truly made me reconsider how I'm seeing the world. It's perfect for any connoisseur of trivia and facts.

Brilliant Maps for Curious Minds captures the idea of "a picture is worth a million words" through cartography. This book certainly gives the reader new ways to see the world through maps which provide clever commentary and presenting interesting trivia tidbits. Wright incorporates religion, politics, environmental science, culture, and demographics into these maps and uses this knowledge to show a unique, thought-provoking perspective of the world. These maps were colorful and easily accessible that appeals to a large range of readers. I wish there was a bit more background information on some of the maps or a further explanation on the topic, however, this was a fun and enjoyable read, perfect for curious minds.

*Thank you to NetGalley and The Experiment publishers for providing a free ARC

Thank you to NetGalley for an early copy of Brilliant Maps for Curious Minds, 100 New Ways to See the World by Ian Wright. I loved this book! Ian compiled 100 different maps of the world that each showed the world in a different way. The book is divided into nine categories including: People and Populations, Friends and Enemies, Geography, and Nature. The maps were all very colorful and showed off some unique ideas.

Some of my favorite maps included:
- Which countries have had a female leader in the last 50 years and how long was a female the head of the government
- The largest source of imports by country, shown by coloring the importing country to look like the country doing the importing’s flag
- Countries not using the metric system
- European countries that have invaded Poland
- Where North Korea has embassies vs which countries have embassies in North Korea
- Antipodes – what’s directly on the other side of the earth from each area
- Colors of passports from around the world
- Prison populations per 100K people
- Countries with the most venomous animals

When I was a kid, I loved to get the World Almanac and Book of Facts and try to figure out which US State had the most cows, which country spoke the most languages, where is the second longest river in the world, etc. and this book was like that with someone else doing the research. I recommend this book for anyone who is a fan of random facts. Also, I look forward to following Ian’s website for more interesting maps.

Interesting Enough, But A Lot of Attitude

This book contains some wonderful examples of how information can be displayed graphically. Many of the examples are just color coded world maps that show some interesting fact about how something is distributed globally, but others offer odd or clever ways of looking at facts.

That said, many of the maps will be familiar or at least cover familiar ground. Maybe I'm just being touchy, but there seemed to be an odd bent to many of the maps that offered rather pointed observations about the United States. So, we get a map of murders by country, (U.S. is high), prison population as a percentage of country population, (U.S. is high), casualties of World Wars I and II as a percentage of country population, (U.S. didn't suffer as much as others), climate change denial by state, (boy, those guys in the Deep South must be dopes), non-users of the metric system, (U.S. and two other dopey countries), countries that have had a female leader, (not the U.S., yet), and immigrant population, (hey, U.S., you are a nation of immigrants). All true enough, but not exactly news.

Some of the featured facts are weird, (which countries hold elections on which day of the week; a map of places with the longest names; colors of passports ), but some were worth a pause - countries with no McDonalds, a line just above Toronto below which half of all Canadians live, the only 22 countries that the U.K. has never invaded, all the countries raided by Vikings, all of the countries that have invaded Poland.

On the graphic design side, the maps are split between overlays, (which European countries have to fit into California to match its population), or just color coded world maps. There didn't seem to me much in the way of novel design as such.

So, very much a mixed bag. This book is a collection drawn from the author's Brilliant Maps website, and as such it is meant as an entertainment and a thought provoker. In that regard it struck me as enough of a success to be worth a browse.

(Please note that I received a free advance will-self-destruct-in-x-days Adobe Digital copy of this book without a review requirement, or any influence regarding review content should I choose to post a review. Apart from that I have no connection at all to either the author or the publisher of this book.)

I've always loved geography - it was one of my three favorite categories in Trivial Pursuit back in the day (the others being history & science). So I was naturally drawn to this book because of its title, and it definitely delivered on the title's promise. The author shows the reader geographical representations of things s/he may not have ever thought about before - what countries drive on the left side of the road, countries that don't' have a McDonald's, etc). 100 maps ensure you'll find many of special interest to you, but they will all put things into a bit of perspective you didn't know you were missing.

The information in this book is fascinating, and the layout is clean and easy to understand. I read a digital copy and look forward to revisiting it as a physical book once it is published as it would be easier to enjoy when I can see a double page spread in a physical book.

There is more to knowing about countries than just locations and cities. What about export/imports, how they compare size-wise, are there McDonald’s everywhere? Most maps don’t supply this information, but you can find this information and a lot more in Brilliant Maps For Curious Minds.

I like reading bits of trivia, so it didn’t take long for this book to catch my attention. Ian Wright compiled fact about the countries that, while not what you generally hear, is fun to know. There are many things that can be useful, but it is all informative.

Each map is colorful and easy to read. They are arranged into topics, and the table of contents gives you an overview of what is in each topic. The book appeals to a wide audience, as students can use it as part of class research, trivia buffs can use it to add to their knowledge, and nearly everyone can use it to learn more about the world we live in.

I received a complimentary copy from the publisher through NetGalley. All opinions are my own.

Brilliant maps for curious minds is a book that warms my big nerdy heart. Not only did I enjoy learning new facts about the world, the graphic side of this book is extremely appealing. Ian Wright succeeded in giving me food for thought and making me want to dive in some of the complex topics that he very nearly brought back to ‘just’ a map. I call that being talented and passionate. I do wish there was a bit more background on some of the maps, but hey, that’s just me being greedy. Overall, I think the title says it all! Brilliant work that really satisfied my very curious mind!