The most recommended books about maps

Who picked these books? Meet our 25 experts.

25 authors created a book list connected to maps, and here are their favorite map books.
When you buy books, we may earn a commission that helps keep our lights on (or join the rebellion as a member).

What type of map book?

Loading...
Loading...

Book cover of Infinite City: A San Francisco Atlas

Elizabeth Linhart Veneman Author Of Moon: Northern California

From my list on San Francisco’s idealism, power, grit, and beauty.

Why am I passionate about this?

My early memories of San Francisco in the late 1970s are anything but glamorous. We lived in a crummy apartment down the street from the People’s Temple, and my preschool, in the always gray Sunset, served carob, not chocolate. Despite decamping for the greener pastures and white sands of Carmel-By-The-Sea, I was forever hooked by the gritty magic of San Francisco. I eventually returned to the city’s foggy Richmond District, where now I ruminate on past adventures, plot new ones, and write about the place I love. I'm the author of Moon Napa Sonoma, Moon California, and Moon Northern California, and my work has appeared in 7x7, the San Francisco Chronicle, and Alaska Magazine

Elizabeth's book list on San Francisco’s idealism, power, grit, and beauty

Elizabeth Linhart Veneman Why did Elizabeth love this book?

Rebecca Solnit’s San Francisco is an onion; not one to be peeled back, but one whose paper skins remain overlapping in layered complexity. Reflecting the city’s élan, this odd-sized book is a beautiful compendium of exquisitely illustrated maps, each unique in style and in juxtaposing themes. You’ll open it to find one plotting Bay Area culinary establishments against its Super Fund sites; then flip to a quixotic mapping of murders and Monterey Cypress; then to another revealing the lost world of South of Market or the Third Street corridor from 4000 B.C.E. to 2001. Each map has a corresponding essay, many written by writers other than Solnit, adding to the vibrancy of voices in this masterwork of a diverse and complex place. 

By Rebecca Solnit,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Infinite City as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

What makes a place? "Infinite City", Rebecca Solnit's brilliant reinvention of the traditional atlas, searches out the answer by examining the many layers of meaning in one place, the San Francisco Bay Area. Aided by artists, writers, cartographers, and twenty-two gorgeous color maps, each of which illuminates the city and its surroundings as experienced by different inhabitants, Solnit takes us on a tour that will forever change the way we think about place. She explores the area thematically - connecting, for example, Eadweard Muybridge's foundation of motion-picture technology with Alfred Hitchcock's filming of "Vertigo". Across an urban grid of just…


Book cover of Infinite City: A San Francisco Atlas

Share your top 3 reads of 2024!

And get a beautiful page showing off your 3 favorite reads.

1,861

readers submitted
so far, will you?