book review: Maphead by Ken Jennings
The backstory: I'm a huge fan of Jeopardy! (yes, I DVR it daily), and as Ken Jennings still holds the longest winning streak ever (74 games), so I am intellectually enamored by him. I also have an odd fascination with maps (and globes), so when I first heard about this book, it was right up my alley, even though I rarely read non-fiction. The basics: Maphead: Charting the Wide, Weird World of Geography Wonks is part memoir, part narrative nonfiction and part geographic trivia. My thoughts: When I started reading Maphead , I wasn't quite sure what I would get. I was pleasantly surprised with the quality of Jennings' writing. I'd stop short of calling him a wordsmith, but the narrative had a nice flow, which is impressive when imparting so many details about geography. The librarian and professor in me was pleasantly surprised to see passages contemplating the state of geography in our education: "At some point isn’t this news only is the kids suddenly start d...