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Map Addict: The Bestselling Tale of an Obsession Kindle Edition

by Mike Parker (Author) Format: Kindle Edition
4.2 4.2 out of 5 stars 237 ratings
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'My name is Mike and I am a map addict. There, it's said…'

Mike Parker, presenter of Radio 4’s On the Map, celebrates the richness of all things maps in this fantastic, critically-acclaimed read, completely updated in 2023.

On an average day, we will consult some form of map approximately a dozen times, often without even noticing: they are a cipher for every area of human existence. At a stroke, they convey precise information about topography, layout, history, politics and power. They are the unsung heroes of life: Map Addict sings their song.

There are some fine, dry tomes out there about the history and development of cartography: this is not one of them. Mixing wry observation with hard fact and considerable research, Map Addict unearths the offbeat, the unusual and the downright pedantic in a celebration of all things maps. Combining history, travel, politics, memoir and oblique observation in a highly readable, and often very funny, style, Mike Parker confesses how his own impressive map collection was founded on a virulent teenage shoplifting habit, ponders how a good leftie can be so gung-ho about British cartographic imperialism and wages a one-man war against the moronic blandishments of the Sat Nav age.

This new edition of the beloved classic has been fully revised and updated, with a new chapter on digital maps: the good, the bad, the Google Street View.

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  1. Print length
    386 pages
  2. Language
    English
  3. Sticky notes
    On Kindle Scribe
  4. Publisher
    Collins
  5. Publication date
    September 17, 2009
  6. File size
    18373 KB
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Editorial Reviews

Review

‘Mike Parker offers an exhilarating celebration of the humble map.’ Mail on Sunday

‘Excellent book,’ Daily Telegraph

‘This eclectic, funny and warm book should be on the shelves of everyone who has spent hours staring at a map.’ The Great Outdoors

‘a witty entreaty to leave the satnav in the car, and to head for the hills with the Ordnance Survey.’ BBC Country File magazine

‘a highly engaging and thoughtful, haphazard and personal, meander around maps and map-related arcane.’ Daily Mail

‘Parker makes his view of cartography both interesting and funny.’ Choice magazine

‘a funny, observant and genuinely interesting book.’ Adventure Travel

‘As you'd expect, given Mike's legendary wit, this is a book that's well worth a read.’ Midland Zone

‘In fact, it is a sense of mischievousness that makes this book quite charming.’ South Wales Argus

‘Nerdy it might seem, but the author's humour and historical knowledge of mad map makers, visionary breakthroughs and a deep love of exploration make this little book a treat.’ Royston Crow

‘Parker uses his own experience to add warmth and humour to a topic that may not, at first glance, appear enticing to the average reader. Accessible and entertaining.’ Country & Border Life

‘Parker proves a witty and engaging guide’ Guardian

About the Author

Mike Parker was born in England and has lived in Wales for half of his life. His other books include the bestseller Map Addict , The Wild Rover and On the Red Hill, which was shortlisted and Highly Commended for the 2020 Wainwright Prize for UK Nature Writing and won the non-fiction Wales Book of the Year Award.

Product details

  • ASIN ‏ : ‎ B002SDGM40
  • Publisher ‏ : ‎ Collins (September 17, 2009)
  • Publication date ‏ : ‎ September 17, 2009
  • Language ‏ : ‎ English
  • File size ‏ : ‎ 18373 KB
  • Text-to-Speech ‏ : ‎ Enabled
  • Screen Reader ‏ : ‎ Supported
  • Enhanced typesetting ‏ : ‎ Enabled
  • X-Ray ‏ : ‎ Enabled
  • Word Wise ‏ : ‎ Enabled
  • Sticky notes ‏ : ‎ On Kindle Scribe
  • Print length ‏ : ‎ 386 pages
  • Customer Reviews:
    4.2 4.2 out of 5 stars 237 ratings

About the author

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Mike Parker

Mike Parker

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Mike Parker has had a varied career, which at one point saw him working as a stand-up comedian. He has been widely published and also presents various travel programmes for radio and television. His books to date include the Rough Guide to Wales as well as several other guide books. He writes freelance travel pieces for most of the UK papers, including the Independent, the Independent on Sunday, the Guardian, the Sunday Times and the Mirror.

Customer reviews

4.2 out of 5 stars
4.2 out of 5
237 global ratings

Top reviews from the United States

Celeste
5.0 out of 5 stars Thoroughly enjoyable.
Reviewed in the United States on August 13, 2017
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I consider myself somewhat of an addict, and this book struck quite a few chords. If you love maps, cartography, history or travel you'll find this a lovely read.
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Bruce R. Gilson
4.0 out of 5 stars A nice book, but narrowly British-oriented
Reviewed in the United States on April 26, 2013
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I'm something of a map addict like the author, though my map collection is stashed away in a storage unit, so I appreciate this book. It is a good overview of why one might enjoy collecting maps and a description of much that can be appreciated in them. The only problem I have with the book is an extreme Anglocentrism; he ignores most of the rest of the world, and when he mentions any other country's maps, it's clear that he considers them highly inferior to his own country's. But as I said, I'm a bit of a map addict like him, so I have to say that this "kindred spirit" feeling overpowers that Anglocentric attitude I find a bit off-putting.
4 people found this helpful
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A Borrowed Flame
4.0 out of 5 stars An enjoyable journey
Reviewed in the United States on March 4, 2011
I was lent this book by colleague, and although I forget the discussion that prompted it, she could obviously tell that I had some aspect of map addict about me. While I don't collect maps, I did have a thing for buying random, cheap, guide-books from those book liquidation shops, and I can't pass a map without looking at it to see where everything is in relation to eachother. I too love that map on the back of airplane seats. This was a book for me.
It's a very witty book (Parker has dabbled in stand-up comedy), and rather self-depreciating. It's quite British, with a heavy focus on the Ordinance Survey maps and their history, which was never-the-less interesting to a non-Brit such as myself (although I did live in London for a couple of years so am perhaps somewhat familiar with British geography). Though he looks at European mapping and geography too.
He looks at the history of the Greenwich meridian, and the way in which map technology has almost always come from a military genesis. There's a chapters on the evolution of street names and their common erotic origins, the famous London tube map and the A-Z. He ends by looking at the pros and cons of digital map technology.
The book is highly autobiographical, as Parker traces his childhood (a slight quibble is the way in which he feels the need to keep reminding us that he was a naughty boy and used to steal maps) and life experiences with various maps and journeys, which keeps it all from being dry and academic, while at the same time feeling like he's taking us for a meander rather than a striclty plotted course.
That I finished this book much quicker than most is either testiment to the enjoyable nature of the book, or my own if somewhat contained) map addiction. I did come away wanting to get hold of several atlases which he waxes lyrical about.
If you like looking at maps, I highly reccomend this enjoyable read.
4 people found this helpful
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Patrick Mullane
1.0 out of 5 stars Carte Blanche
Reviewed in the United States on January 14, 2021
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What might have been an engaging memoir of a life influenced by maps devolved into an exercise of progressive self-preening by the author and rather his bloviated opinion pieces on Conservatives and Christians within the UK. If this were map, it would be an irregular scrawl masquerading as an OSI product.
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jacw2000
4.0 out of 5 stars The Romance of the British Ordnance Survey Map
Reviewed in the United States on May 7, 2012
Possibly the story of my life? Maybe not - I am fascinated by maps, Mike Parker is obsessed by them and is struggling to cut down.

In an earlier century this book might have had the subtitle "The Romance of the British Ordnance Survey Map, its Place in History, its Beauty and Accuracy, by an Admirer. With Digressions on the Wickedness of Foreign Maps, Satnavs, and other Work of the Devil"

Evangelists beware - the author is a gay comedian with an interest in paganism. If you read this book's 666 pages you may go straight to hell...

Jack Whittaker is a database administrator specialising in SQL Server technologies and author of the DBAtasks Blog - [...]
3 people found this helpful
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Top reviews from other countries

Matthew Gidley
5.0 out of 5 stars Cartophilia!
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on June 19, 2009
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Mike Parker, a Rough Guide editor and Welsh-TV travel presenter, has written an enormously and endlessly fascinating book about everything of or pertaining to the British Life of Maps. It's a history, memoir, polemic, paean, psychogeography, and love poem dedicated to the Ordnance Survey map and all things cartographic. And, because Mr Parker is a dryly amusing chap with some fairly cutting observations and insights to share, it's also laugh-out-loud funny in places.

This really is the perfect book for map lovers, and the perfect read for people who didn't even know they cared about maps at all. Written very much from the same stable as books like Cod, Longitude, Salt, The Surgeon of Crowthorne etc, it takes one seemingly small subject and explodes it into something kaleidoscopically fascinating and revealing and inspiring. I couldn't put it down.
101 people found this helpful
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A. J. W. Smith
4.0 out of 5 stars A pub conversation not a classroom lecture
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on October 18, 2013
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I thought I was a map addict, but I'm a dilettante compared to the author and the even more fanatical map addicts referred to within his book.

The style of writing is informal, blending cartography history, facts, trivia, anecdotes and autobiography. In the first two thirds or so of the book, Mike Parker looks primarily at the history & techniques of map-making intermixed with interesting trivia. For example, I was fascinated to read about the strenuous efforts of laying glass rods & metal chains in a specially dug ditches stretching for miles to establish the first two baselines for the early OS maps in the 18th century. Interesting trivia included places like Jungholz, an enclave of Austria that is only joined to the mother country by a single point, the summit of a mountain. Then he had me scurrying to a website that listed "secret" military bases (the bibliography has a useful list of websites).

Scattered throughout this mine of cartographic information are personal anecdotes that become more prominent in the final part of the book which reads like a personal odyssey. I didn't mind this as the author is amusing, honest and thought-provoking. I liked a lot of what he said, though I disagreed with his rant against satnav ("pratnav") as evidenced by the many map apps I have on my phone & iPad.

Reading this book is like sitting in a pub with a knowledgeable & opinionated friend, who ends up sharing more personal stuff as the beer works its magic. It is not a textbook or a seat in the classroom of a college professor presenting only facts and data on maps.
7 people found this helpful
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M. Wootton
5.0 out of 5 stars Essential reading for all Mapoholics!
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on April 12, 2015
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Apart from a few uncomfortable moments where Mike Parker bears his soul and confesses to serial shoplifting, this book is an absorbing read for anyone who has a love of maps. Time after time I found myself thinking I was reading my own autobiography as Mike's experiences and his friends reactions to his enthusiasm for maps echoed my own so closely. I found it hard to put this book down once I had opened it. Excellent read.
One person found this helpful
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Rob Sawyer
3.0 out of 5 stars View from Coventry with Seagulls
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on August 31, 2010
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I can't remember how I chanced on this book but thought it was right up my street (pun intended). I am not a map perv but I do like looking at them to the extent that in 1984 I actually 'phoned the OS to tell them they had a mistake on their North Norfolk map where the two bits around Blakeney Point met (on different sheets) - perhaps it was genetic as both my mother and her brother worked for the OS before and after WW2.

The introduction annoyed me with overuse of the word 'rapt'. It was only in there twice but stuck out like a trig point because it's not too common a word. Also throughout the book there are many instances of 'I was sat' 'we were sat' - are all editors and proof readers illiterate these days? The B+W photos within the text are a bit rubbish too.I wasn't particularly keen on his open confession of stealing maps, I think I would have kept that quiet or have been a bit more subtle about it (not sure how though).

Anyway minor gripes apart the first part of the book is great, particularly the chapter about the OS (Parker describes Southampton, home of the OS, as Coventry with Seagulls, which having lived there for over 70% of my life a) made me laugh and b) I thought it was a generous comment to the dump it has become), the French meridian etc - this was what I thought the book was about, great stuff.

However, somewhat ironically, I think Parker loses his map for the latter half or so of the book as it becomes a book about things that might be found on maps rather than the maps themselves, then descends into slagging off guide books, and going on trains around Europe.

He also displays the dichotomy of the 'celeb' which reminded me of Bill Oddie. On one hand here he is with perhaps quite an enviable job of writing and broadcasting yet he gets annoyed when someone spots who he is in a pub and buttonholes him to talk about mining. If you don't want to be recognised then don't do that sort of job!!

I wasn't sure what mentioning his own sexuality added to the book, and this too becomes more and more frequent as the end looms, including the bizarre bit about how one's sexuality determines how good you are at reading maps! I thought the comment at the end of this chapter which says 'Women, I think appreciate maps just as much as men Many are just as good as reading them as we are' was somewhat patronising, although I think there is a little bit of theme of that within the book - I am a map addict and you are not, therefore you are inferior - some of the writing is quite vicious in parts, though also sometimes amusing and entertaining.

I am glad I read this book, overall I enjoyed it and it had some very useful information in it. However I think it could have been better if it had stopped well before the end.
27 people found this helpful
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Kenneth John Gibbons
5.0 out of 5 stars You'll know if you are one
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on February 16, 2018
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Not the first of his books I have read, but well worth the read. I now realise that there are a lot of us map addicts out there, and this book has just captured my feelings. Condition of book superb.
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