Mapping Your Feelings

The Atlas Of Experience by Louise Van Swaaij and Jean Klare

This month’s book review is about a book that is hard to categorise. I want to tell you about this book because it is unique, highly enjoyable and a publication that can amuse and enlighten every time you open its covers. Whimsical, thought provoking and clever The Atlas Of Experience is a treat.

It really is an atlas, a book of maps, but these are not traditional geographic maps, these are maps of emotions, experiences and ideas. Developed by two Dutch cartographers in 1997 they were encouraged to take their original idea, a Christmas gift for clients, and expand for publication. The picture I’ve attached gives you a taste of this ingenious concept.

At first you think you are seeing a detailed map of somewhere you might like to go, a part of SE Asia or perhaps Morocco. But look closer, this is a made-up world full of countries with names like Passion and its capital city Heart, the town Obsession and the Lake Boundless. All the maps are beautiful to look at and highly detailed with all the usual geographic features appropriately named. The town of Foul Play sited on the edge of the Sea Of Possibilities is one of many examples. There is also a legend and an index and everything that a normal atlas has, but this one plots out some very different destinations.

There is some accompanying text too but to be honest I’ve only ever read half of it. You might feel differently but everything I want from this book is in the twenty-one maps. It is a fantastic idea, brilliantly executed and you can dip in and out of it for the rest of your life, as I do every six months or so. Highly recommended.

The Atlas Of Experience

Louise Van Swaaij and Jean Klare

Bloomsbury

2000