Gianni Guadalupi Book order

A fascinating journey into the Sahara Desert from Mauritania to the Red Sea, guided by superb photographs that demonstrate the contrasts of this land - hostile mountains that give way to dunes of fine sand, vast expanse of stony ground and formations of white chalk, and the hidden beauty of rock painting and graffiti. Immense areas in which Nature has created forms and colors that give life to landscapes of astounding beauty, and men and women who made the desert their home, like Tuareg, the Mauri and the Peul Bororo.

Now in paperback, an illustrated history of the wholly imaginary place on the globe: the equator, an entirely human construct that has fascinated and challenged explorers for 3,000 years. The equator—its location not only on the globe but also in the minds and exploits of navigators, travelers, poets, and dreamers since the dawn of civilization—is the magical thread on which the eminent Italian historian Gianni Guadalupi strings some of humankind’s most intriguing lore and most amazing adventures in this original and riveting intellectual history. The mysterious source of the Nile and the enigma of the Congo’s swell, the perils of the Doldrums, and the vicissitudes of El Nino, the quest for the lost Eden and the search for El Dorado, all fall within the compass of Guadalupi’s extraordinary volume. So do the names of Columbus, Magellan, Don Lope de Aguirre, Sinbad the Sailor, Henry Stanley, Charles-Marie de la Condamine, and Dante Alighieri, who placed Purgatory on an island athwart the equator. “A series of historical vignettes ... for the armchair traveler: history rendered as a libretto to the planet’s grand opera.”—Kirkus Reviews “These engagingly written stories are perfect jumping-off points for armchair adventurers or perhaps journey enough for commuting conquistadors.”—Booklist “Filled with stories that are well written and captivating”—Library Journal

From Atlantis to Xanadu and beyond, this Baedeker of make-believe takes readers on a tour of more than 1,200 realms invented by storytellers from Homer's day to our own. Here you will find Shangri-La and El Dorado; Utopia and Middle Earth; Wonderland and Freedonia. Here too are Jurassic Park, Salman Rushdie's Sea of Stories, and the fabulous world of Harry Potter. The history and behavior of the inhabitants of these lands are described in loving detail, and are supplemented by more than 200 maps and illustrations that depict the lay of the land in a host of elsewheres. A must-have for the library of every dedicated reader, fantasy fan, or passionate browser, Dictionary is a witty and acute guide for any armchair traveler's journey into the landscape of the imagination.