DD 021-025.999 Tony; The Island of Lost Maps ( 025.82 HAR)

The dust jacket is my wihte whale. I hate them! True, they can make or break a book, but like a movie trailer it can reveal too much or worse, make you think the book stinks. Then there is the introduction- they too can reveal too much or give you all the good stuff in just a few short sentences, leaving the reader with 200 pages of the same stuff they read in the intro.

When I read in both the dust jacket and the introduction and the first 2 chapters the phrase " Terra Incognito", I admit, I was afraid I had found one of those books like I just described. Thankfully- that was not the case.

This book is about the thieft of hundreds of maps from the innards of library books. As the author examines the life story and motivation of the criminal, an amazing world of maps is opened up to the reader. And soon, you start to wonder if in fact you could steal these books. Gilbert Bland stole maps from local libraries, State archives and universities. Being a resident of Hillsborough, North Carolina- this book took a familiar turn when it was reported that Bland stole maps from Duke and UNC. Then the guy was tried in Hillsborough, and suddenly this book is part of your history. Bland was tried, convicted and had his wrist slpped. In return for a very small sentence, he agreed to return many of the maps. So many, that the FBI still has about 500 maps still needing homes.

Then you start to wonder - could I find one of these books he destroyed and save the day for a victimized library.

This book did for me what Emergency did for my wife and thousands of other kids in the 70's- It opened a world of oppurtunity and makes you want to become a EMT or in my case, a map dealer. This book starts off slow, but picks up steam as it opens up many facets of the world of maps, from history of map making to the history of map stealing; from the creation of a map to it's destruction (as per Gilbert Bland) -everything "interesting" you ever wanted to know about maps is here. I guess you could consider this a map for Mapland.