Podcast: Play in new window | Download
Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | RSS
AN EXPLORER’S GUIDE TO THE WORLD’S HIDDEN WONDERS
by JOSHUA FOER, DYLAN THURAS
& ELLA MORTON
When Joshua Foer, Dylan Thuras, and Ella Morton set out to write ATLAS OBSCURA: An Explorer’s Guide To The World’s Hidden Wonders (Pub Date: September 20, 2016; $35.00), their goal was to create a catalog of all the places, people, and things that inspire wonder (after all, when you can buy a plane ticket and be in Borneo in less than a day, the world can feel awfully small). As the team behind AtlasObscura.com, a vibrant online destination focused on discovery, wonder, and exploration, Foer, Thuras, and Morton had access to an unrivaled treasure trove of secrets, mysteries, intrigues, phenomena, and curiosities to pull from.
The extraordinary result is an unprecedented guide combining compelling descriptive writing with arresting full-color photographs, maps, and charts to share over 600 of the most unusual and fascinating compendium of wonders across all seven continents. But what, exactly, is a “wonder”? A wonder is:
· A musical composition set to play continuously in an old lighthouse in London for 1,000 years without repeating the melody
· An Amsterdam zoo devoted to creatures (molds, yeast, bacteria, viruses) invisible to the naked eye
· The Icelandic Elf School, where classes focus on the distinguishing characteristics of Iceland’s 13 varieties of hidden people and include a tour of Reykjavík’s elf habitats
· Galileo’s severed middle finger, displayed in a goblet accented in gold in Florence, Italy
· Thousands of synchronized fireflies that inexplicably flash in unison in a cluster of mangrove trees outside Kuala Lumpur
· The “Door to Hell,” a fire that has been burning in the Turkmenistan desert for over 45 years
· A Buddhist temple shrine for the souls of insects that died for science
· The yearly Escaped Animal Drill in Ueno Zoo, in which staff members dress in animal suits and attempt to storm the gates of the zoo and wreak havoc on the streets of Tokyo
· A sealed test tube containing Thomas Edison’s last breath
· An Alabama museum displaying finds from unclaimed airline baggage, including a 3,500-year-old Egyptian burial mask and Hoggle, the dwarf puppet from the 1986 film Labyrinth
Along the way, ATLAS OBSCURA reveals the world’s deepest places, hidden tunnels, greatest self-made castles, notable arbotecture (the art of shaping a living tree in order to create art or furniture), giant Buddha statues, abandoned film sets you can visit, murder houses, dinosaur parks, lake monsters of the USA, historical methods of preventing premature burial, a guide to psychotropic drugs used to enhance religious experiences, abandoned nuclear power plants, and much, much more.
Each entry for the astonishing sites in ATLAS OBSCURA includes location information, GPS coordinates, and tips on when and how best to get there—and, sometimes, how to best sneak past the guards. An arresting cabinet of curiosities that inspires wonderlust as much as wanderlust, ATLAS OBSCURA proves that the world is vast and there are marvelous treasures behind every corner—if you just know where to look.
—ATLAS OBSCURA EXPLORER’S JOURNAL—
Created by the same brilliant, intrepid team at Atlas Obscura, who reinvented the travel website and book for a new generation, ATLAS OBSCURA EXPLORER’S JOURNAL (On-sale: October 17, 2017; $17.95) is catnip for the obsessive journaler to chronicle their adventures. This ruggedly handsome and sturdy blank journal, with a lay-flat binding and a storage pocket, belongs in every backpack, carry-on, messenger bag, and desk.
Complementing the 117 blank pages to write in itineraries and plans, list key contacts, and chart adventures is a 50-page section with Atlas Obscura’s singular recommendations to finding the hidden magic in some of the world’s most interesting cities—New York, London, Los Angeles, Paris, Berlin, Tokyo, Budapest, Moscow, Shanghai, Mexico City, Buenos Aires, and Cairo. In addition, journal users will find handy travel references—time zones, weights and measures, seasonal climate charts, average temperatures, and currency information.
—ATLAS OBSCURA 2018 WALL CALENDAR—
At the intersection of compelling content and evocative illustration lies the ATLAS OBSCURA 2018 WALL CALENDAR (On-sale: July 2017; $14.99). Gorgeous travel posters illustrated by Invisible Creature, the design firm responsible for much of the NASA Visions of the Future art series, depict 12 wonders, including:
• Blood Falls (Antarctica)—a 5-story, 2 million-year-old stream of crimson water.
• The Last Incan Grass Bridge (Peru)—a sagging 500-year-old 90-foot suspension bridge that is
braided from nothing more than twisted mountain grass and stretches across a steep gorge.
• The Tree-Climbing Goats of Morocco (Morocco)—the goats of southeast Morocco have no
qualms about scampering to 30-foot-high tree limbs in search of a feast.
Additional sites include: Brutalist Monuments (Bulgaria), Cave of Crystals (Mexico), Tree Lobsters of Balls Pyramid (375 miles off the coast of Australia), Transcontinental Air Mail Route Beacons (Montana), The Monkey Temple (Nepal), The Swing at the End of the World (Ecuador), Ryugyong Hotel (North Korea), The Capuchin Catacombs (Sicily), and Kyaiktiyo Balancing Pagoda (Myanmar).
—ATLAS OBSCURA 2018 PAGE-A-DAY CALENDAR—
Full of hidden wonders, surprising stories, unexpected destinations, and awe-inspiring photographs, the ATLAS OBSCURA 2018 PAGE-A-DAY CALENDAR (On-sale: July 2017; $14.99) offers 365 days of exploration in a full-color boxed desk calendar. From natural wonders like the Everlasting Lightning Storm in Venezuela, to manmade marvels like the Museum of Underwater Art in Mexico, to discoveries like an eccentric bone museum in Italy or a weather-forecasting invention powered by leeches in England, this inspired calendar is the perfect gift for travelers, readers, and the curious.
ABOUT THE AUTHORS
JOSHUA FOER is the cofounder, chairman, and editor at large of AtlasObscura.com. He is also the author of Moonwalking with Einstein, an international bestseller published in 33 languages, and a forthcoming book about the world’s last hunter-gatherers. His writing has appeared in The New Yorker, National Geographic, Esquire, Slate, Outside, the New York Times, and other publications. Visit Joshua online at @joshuafoer.
DYLAN THURAS is the cofounder and creative director of AtlasObscura.com. Dylan has spoken at conferences, including SXSW and Applied Brilliance, about the changing nature of exploration. Previous projects include “Curious Expeditions” about traveling in Eastern Europe for a year, the meeting of the Athanasius Kircher Society, and “World of Wonders,” a series of videos and articles for Slate. Visit Dylan online at @dylanthuras.
ELLA MORTON is an Australian-raised, New York–based nonfiction writer specializing in the strange and wondrous. She has written for Slate and CNET. As the host of travel show Rocketboom NYC, she uncovered New York’s underground oddities and interviewed Cookie Monster and Elmo on the set of Sesame Street. Visit Ella online at @ellamorton.