The Island of Lost Maps: A True Story of Cartographic Crime

This book seems to provoke all-out adoration or real disappointment. If you're looking for a conventional true-crime story, pick something else. This book is about history, values, the age of exploration, and the map of the human mind. It doesn't adhere to the true-crime genre at all. It doesn't adhere to any genre, there's really never been anything quite like it. If that appeals to you, check it out. It was a wondrous experience for me. If you prefer your books to follow established conventions, look into John Grisham or Tom Clancy.

This book was better than the Orchid Thief, better than the Professor and the Madman, and I daresay much more interesting finally than The Perfect Storm. A true intellectual thriller. I really couldn't have loved it more. From the strange, secret world of Bland, the map thief himself, to Harvey's courageous personal revelations to the fantastic history of maps to the cameo by brash map buyers and beseiged librarians--it had high drama, great characters, and the perfect writer at the helm. The thing is Harvey reminds me of those wonderful, funny, penetrating nineteenth century storytellers who start as outside observers and finally find that the undertow of their story has implicated them, too. And us. Highly, highly recommended.

When I first heard that The Island of Lost Maps had its genesis as a magazine article, I wondered whether it might suffer upon being expanded into a book. My fears were unfounded. Here's a book that not only explores a crime and tries to get into the mind of the thief, it is a wonderful look at the history of cartography, the world of rare maps, their life in the auction houses, etc. I turned page after page, greedily devouring Harvey's deft prose. Some critics have faulted Harvey for intruding too much into the story, but don't believe them. He is engaging, inquiring and downright likeable as an everyman narrator who's been bitten by his curiosity. We should all give into our obsessions as he has in writing this book. Bravo!

Miles Harvey has succeeded in telling a story that not only involves the history of cartography and one man's attempt to profit from stealing the past, but also a personal journey of his own in interpreting the map of the life of thief Gilbert Bland. The journey takes many turns, not too many as to obscure the original destination, but enough well-researched avenues to enhance the experience for the educated reader.It's like the PBS series "Connections" meets "America's Most Wanted"; Harvey turns ordinary library books into victims of malice aforethought as he traces the crimes and tries on the mind of the criminal. Finishing this book, I know I'll want to read it again; like an Umberto Eco book, I'll get something new out of it with each read.

What an unexpected delight. I thought it would be an interesting crime caper, but that was really just the launching point (and central plot line) for a fascinating exploration of a series of intriguing ideas. I had no idea what a profound role map had played in the history or exploration, or especially how maps served as a model for much of the way we think. Stunning to discover how much of my own mental process mirrored the maps, right down to the imaginary creatures and utopian lands littered around their edges. They have become so integrated into the way we conceive and process our world that they'd disappeared from view, taken for granted, like oxygen. I had studied enough history to grasp how much my world-view was founded on the ideas of the Enlightenment, of Darwin, Einstein and Freud. I had no idea how much was resting on maps. It was jaw-dropping sometimes to see them revealed.I have to say, I had no idea I would find those subjects interesting either. But I was slyly drawn into these worlds, and found them more fascinating than the crime caper that originally grabbed my attention.I hope I'm not making this sound like some plodding historical bore. It actually moves along quite quickly, and the modern story of this weird little man in this strange little world is fascinating stuff. (The chapter on the big map-trader Arader was a hoot.) That was what I picked the book up for, and it was everything I expected, but Harvey wove this little adventure seamlessly into a host of other explorations, and those are what made this book truly magical. Really remarkable stuff.