|
The Dictionary of Imaginary Places: The Newly Updated and Expanded Classic | 
 enlarge | Author: Alberto Manguel
Publisher: Harcourt
Category: Book
List Price: $25.00
Buy Used: $6.00
You Save: $19.00 (76%)
New (22) Used (21) Collectible (2) from $6.00
Avg. Customer Rating:  26 reviews
Sales Rank: 93530
Media: Paperback
Edition: Exp Upd
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 804
Shipping Weight (lbs): 2.7
Dimensions (in): 8.9 x 7 x 2.1
ISBN: 0156008726
Dewey Decimal Number: 809.93372
EAN: 9780156008723
ASIN: 0156008726
Publication Date: November 2, 2000
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Shipping: Expedited shipping available
Shipping: International shipping available
Condition: ships out next day, click expedited for faster shipping
|
| Also Available In:
|
| Similar Items:
|
| Editorial Reviews:
Amazon.com
Like an ordinary geographical dictionary, The Dictionary of Imaginary Places contains alphabetically organized entries for more than a thousand locales. In this case, however, the locales in question are far from ordinary--they range from the orc-ridden wastes of Tolkien's Middle-earth to the languorous shores of Homer's Island of the Lotus-Eaters. Though for the most part these fantastical lands are mapped and chronicled with straight-faced seriousness, the encyclopedia is not without a certain deadpan wit. For example, the entry for Oz describes "a large rectangular country divided into four small countries.... As a famous visitor once remarked, Oz is not Kansas." This handsome and whimsically charming book, adorned with fanciful line drawings and maps, is rich with enough fictive detail to please the most inveterate reader.
Product Description
From Atlantis to Xanadu and beyond, this Baedeker of make-believe takes readers on a tour of more than 1,200 realms invented by storytellers from Homer's day to our own. Here you will find Shangri-La and El Dorado; Utopia and Middle Earth; Wonderland and Freedonia. Here too are Jurassic Park, Salman Rushdie's Sea of Stories, and the fabulous world of Harry Potter. The history and behavior of the inhabitants of these lands are described in loving detail, and are supplemented by more than 200 maps and illustrations that depict the lay of the land in a host of elsewheres. A must-have for the library of every dedicated reader, fantasy fan, or passionate browser, Dictionary is a witty and acute guide for any armchair traveler's journey into the landscape of the imagination.
|
| Customer Reviews: Read 21 more reviews...
 Magnificent work December 1, 2007
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
This is a beautiful and valuable book, exhaustive and informative. The dictionary's subject matter in itself is of course quite lovely. There's always a chance that a reference might be missing but for each one that's missing you'll certainly find a dozen others that even your wildest imagination could not place.
 A- for content, B- for illustrations. November 23, 2007
7 out of 7 found this review helpful
Somewhat disappointed with this "newly updated and expanded" edition. Maps are everything when exploring imaginary places; they provide atmosphere as well as information. The maps in the original came from a variety of sources. Fairyland was documented with Bernard Sleigh's wonderful "Ancient Map of Fairyland" in a two-page spread, Tolkien's famous maps were included, and so on.
The maps in this edition are generic line drawings, informative but unenchanting, and I can only guess that the authors were unable to negotiate permissions in the more complicated legalities of the 21st century. Also, some entries that appeared in the original are omitted from the new edition. We particularly missed Allestone, an Islandia-like country invented in great detail beginning in 1801 by Thomas Williams Malkin, who died at the age of six.
For a book on imaginary places, it's surprising how little space was allocated to Fairyland, especially when compared with the several-pages-long entry on Hogwarts.
We suggest buying a copy of the original 1980 edition along with the current one; the older book may not have Hogwarts, but it casts its own spell.
Places left out September 19, 2007
1 out of 5 found this review helpful
A well-written and entertaining book. It does leave out three imaginary places, however: Heaven, Hell, and Purgatory. And of course their Dantean equivalents: Paradiso, Purgagorio, and Inferno. (These last three could have provided good descriptions of the many circles and denizens that Dante portrayed.)
 Curiously Addictive August 24, 2007
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
The work principally concerns itself with literary locations, set on this earth, and should not be criticized for failing to list locales from every US television program to have ever aired. My greatest problem has always been the difficulty in putting it down. You open it as a reference book to see if it will help illumine some question in your mind in regard to a book (it probably will), but an oddly familiar name or interesting map will draw your attention as you search. An hour later you realize you've been reading for sheer pleasure and try to recall what initial question brought you to consult the volume.
An Atlas of Whimsy March 21, 2006
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
I got this book when I was bed-ridden with the flu to help me cope with the days and nights of dizzy spells and the blahs. It not only got me through the ordeal but still serves me well when I want to take an imaginary trip to "Neverland", meaning the realms of childhood and adulthood wonderment. The book doesn't include places that might occupy corners of our own dreary work-a-day world, but those "over the rainbow" places created by talented fabulists who take their readers on magical journeys. Not all the places are pleasant.They are not necessarily utopias. Some of the places are those you might have visited in a nightmare. But they are nonetheless places to which you may want to travel...or revisit, if you've read the stories using the places as a setting. In some cases, it may motivate the browser to read the works from which the descriptions are derived. From the quasi-mathematical vistas of Flatland to the dreamscapes of Windsor Mackay's Slumberland, this travelogue will provide the armchair voyager with many hours of pleasure.
|
|
|
Powered by Associate-O-Matic
| |
