Intrepid and armchair travelers alike enjoy straying from the expected course and perusing odd and idiosyncratic maps. Here we look at three atypical atlases that reveal a world not yet charted by a standard GPS.

Atlas Obscura

Joshua Foer, Dylan Thuras, and Ella Morton. Workman, Sept.

The website Atlas Obscura has drawn attention—and more than 545,000 Facebook likes—for its coverage of some of the world’s most bizarre locales and spectacles. The website’s founders, Foer and Thuras, along with site editor Ella Morton, collected more than 700 of them in this book, including a baobab tree in South Africa that’s so big it has a pub inside, and the Baby Jumping Festival in Spain (yes, there are real babies involved).

Judgmental Maps

Trent Gillaspie. Flatiron, Nov.

Based on Austin comedian Gillaspie’s Tumblr account of the same name, which has more than 30,000 subscribers and 50,000 Twitter followers, this book doles out insight and snark in equal measure, steering clear of political correctness to pinpoint the best and worst aspects of cities across the U.S. Readers will learn where to find authentic Chinese food in L.A., and perhaps equally useful, how to avoid the “rich people getting drunk on boats” in Minneapolis–Saint Paul.

Nonstop Metropolis

Rebecca Solnit and Joshua Jelly-Schapiro. Univ. of California, Oct.

Solnit’s trilogy of offbeat atlases includes 2010’s Infinite City: A San Francisco Atlas, which has sold more than 27,000 print copies per Nielsen BookScan, and 2013’s Unfathomable City: A New Orleans Atlas, coauthored by Nola native Rebecca Snedeker, which has sold more than 15,000 print copies per BookScan. Now comes Nonstop Metropolis: A New York City Atlas, coauthored by geographer Joshua Jelly-Schapiro. The book features 26 maps that zero in on diverse aspects of the city—money, culture, violence, the environment, and more—drawing on the knowledge of Teju Cole, Margo Jefferson, Luc Sante, and many others.

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