This is a crossover book and I debated whether or not to include it in a biography post, a post about women, or do something about maps. Maps won out!

Soundings: the Story of the Remarkable Woman Who Mapped the Ocean Floor, by Hali Felt. Well written, but also frustrating! I know, I know, it takes place at the time when women were entering the work force ... as secretaries, stenographers and so forth, but still, the amazing work that Marie Tharp did was dismissed as 'unlikely' and 'the flights of a female mind'. She checked, and double checked and that rift in the mountains on the ocean floor really was there. The one that would prove the (at the time) shaky theory of continental drift, and, eventually, plate tectonics. It reminded me a bit of Mary Sherman Morgan and Rocket Girl (July 26, 2014 post).

I read the first edition of The Mapmakers, by John Noble Wilford, but I see where there is a revised version available. I loved this book! It is the history of mapmaking and the people who made them. There are maps from the earliest of times, to mapping outer space and from the oceans to the human mind.

On the Map: a Mind-Expanding Exploration of the Way the World Looks, by Simon Garfield covers, oh, just so much about maps! Early maps, early globes, street maps, military maps, they're all here. So are guide books, maps in movies and fiction. Those who love and collect maps, those who steal maps. There are spoofs of maps, and finally, of course, Google earth, GPS, and smart phone apps. All in all quite a nice read.

Remember when the glove compartment in a car contained road maps?

Reading Hermit With Dog