Atlas Obscura: An Explorer's Guide to the World's Most Unusual Places - Hardcover

Foer, Joshua; Morton, Ella; Thuras, Dylan

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0761169083 ISBN 13: 9780761169086

Publisher: Workman Publishing, 2016

Synopsis

Talk about a bucket list: here are natural wonders-the dazzling glowworm caves in New Zealand, or a baobob tree in South Africa that's so large it has a pub inside where 15 people can drink comfortably. Architectural marvels, including the M.C. Escher-like stepwells in India. Mind-boggling events, like the Baby Jumping Festival in Spain, where men dressed as devils literally vault over rows of squirming infants. Not to mention the Great Stalacpipe Organ in Virginia, Turkmenistan's 40-year hole of fire called the Gates of Hell, a graveyard for decommissioned ships on the coast of Bangladesh, eccentric bone museums in Italy, or a weather-forecasting invention that was powered by leeches, still on display in Devon, England.Created by Joshua Foer, Dylan Thuras and Ella Morton, ATLAS OBSCURA revels in the weird, the unexpected, the overlooked, the hidden and the mysterious. Every page expands our sense of how strange and marvellous the world really is. And with its compelling descriptions, hundreds of photographs, surprising charts, maps for every region of the world, it is a book to enter anywhere, and will be as appealing to the armchair traveller as the die-hard adventurer.Anyone can be a tourist. ATLAS OBSCURA is for the explorer.

About this title

About the Author

Joshua Foer is the cofounder, chairman, and editor at large of Atlas Obscura. He is also the author of Moonwalking with Einstein, an international bestseller published in 33 languages, and a forthcoming book about his travels with pygmies in the Congo. Co-creator of Sukkah City, one of the largest design competitions of the last 20 years, Foer was named one of ten people who could change the world by the New Statesman.

Ella Morton is an Australian-raised, New York-based non-fiction writer specialising in the strange and wondrous. She has written for Slate, Conde Nast Traveler, and CNET. As the host of travel show Rocketboom NYC, she uncovered New York’s underground oddities and interviewed Cookie Monster and Elmo on the set of Sesame Street.

Dylan Thuras is the cofounder and creative director of Atlas Obscura.

From the Back Cover

It's time to get off the beaten path. Inspiring equal parts wonder and wanderlust, Atlas Obscura celebrates over 700 of the strangest and most curious places in the world. Talk about a bucket list: here are natural wonders the dazzling glowworm caves in New Zealand, or a baobob tree in South Africa that's so large it has a pub inside where 15 people can drink comfortably. Architectural marvels, including the M.C. Escher-like stepwells in India. Mind-boggling events, like the Baby Jumping Festival in Spain, where men dressed as devils literally vault over rows of squirming infants. Not to mention the Great Stalacpipe Organ in Virginia, Turkmenistan's 40-year hole of fire called the Gates of Hell, a graveyard for decommissioned ships on the coast of Bangladesh, eccentric bone museums in Italy, or a weather-forecasting invention that was powered by leeches, still on display in Devon, England. Created by Joshua Foer, Dylan Thuras and Ella Morton, ATLAS OBSCURA revels in the weird, the unexpected, the overlooked, the hidden and the mysterious. Every page expands our sense of how strange and marvelous the world really is. And with its compelling descriptions, hundreds of photographs, surprising charts, maps for every region of the world, it is a book to enter anywhere, and will be as appealing to the armchair traveller as the die-hard adventurer. Anyone can be a tourist. ATLAS OBSCURA is for the explorer.

From the Inside Flap

It's time to get off the beaten path. Inspiring equal parts wonder and wanderlust, Atlas Obscura celebrates over 700 of the strangest and most curious places in the world.

Talk about a bucket list: here are natural wonders-the dazzling glowworm caves in New Zealand, or a baobob tree in South Africa that's so large it has a pub inside where 15 people can drink comfortably. Architectural marvels, including the M.C. Escher-like stepwells in India. Mind-boggling events, like the Baby Jumping Festival in Spain, where men dressed as devils literally vault over rows of squirming infants. Not to mention the Great Stalacpipe Organ in Virginia, Turkmenistan's 40-year hole of fire called the Gates of Hell, a graveyard for decommissioned ships on the coast of Bangladesh, eccentric bone museums in Italy, or a weather-forecasting invention that was powered by leeches, still on display in Devon, England.

Created by Joshua Foer, Dylan Thuras and Ella Morton, ATLAS OBSCURA revels in the weird, the unexpected, the overlooked, the hidden and the mysterious. Every page expands our sense of how strange and marvelous the world really is. And with its compelling descriptions, hundreds of photographs, surprising charts, maps for every region of the world, it is a book to enter anywhere, and will be as appealing to the armchair traveler as the die-hard adventurer.

Anyone can be a tourist. ATLAS OBSCURA is for the explorer.

Edition details

• Publisher: Workman Publishing
• Publication date: 2016
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0761169083
• ISBN 13: 9780761169086
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 480