>Cartographia: mapping civilizations by Vincent Virga and the Library of Congress is my new favorite book. Why? Because I am a map nut. Atlases, road maps, globes, you name a type of map and you can be pretty sure I have spent considerable time gazing upon it with informational wonderment.

This large collection of historical maps features the premiere maps in the Library of Congress and the story behind their creation. We learn of the map makers themselves and the incredible journeys of how these particular maps have come into existence.

This book is not only a masterpiece to the mind,
but to the heart as well.

Here are some of the neat maps included:

• The Waldeseemuller Map of the World from 1507, the first to include the designation “America”
• Pages from Ortelius’s Theatrum Orbis Terrarum of 1570, considered the first modern atlas
• William Faulkner’s hand-drawn 1936 map of the fictional Yoknapatawpha County, Mississippi
• A 2001 map of the human genome

Don’t take a wrong turn in Albuquerque! Check it out!