From the title and colour map inserts, I thought that This Way Up: When Maps Go Wrong (and why it matters) by Mark Cooper-Jones and Jay Foreman would be a funny and informative read. How could I, a cartophile, not like a book about mistakes on maps? That’s easy to answer: when the authors pollute their book with annoying footnotes, an overwhelming number of which were faux-cutesy and self-referential. And none of them funny. Daggers and double daggers sometimes both followed an asterisk for the same note, thus *†‡. It was a distraction, as the bottoms of the pages were full of them.
I did not come upon this book via the authors’ YouTube channel, where they are known as The Map Men. I have never seen their show. After reading this book, I do not plan to. Perhaps these footnotes are representations of on-camera eye rolls or snarky asides, but they do not translate to the printed page. In my notes I recorded–as soon as page 2–how annoying they were, and there was already an asterisk and a dagger on that page alone.
The table of contents seemed interesting, and the book started out with an analysis–seriously done, I must add–why New Zealand often found itself excised from world maps. The first map in chapter one was Ikea’s notorious “Björkstra” map, where colours drip across undemarcated international borders. Large countries like Canada feature a splotch of drippy hues. Only problem is (the main one, really, as the authors pointed out many other faults on this map) is that New Zealand is nowhere to be seen. That’s a big oops, but nothing the Kiwis hadn’t experienced before. Turns out their usual banishment on flat world maps to the lower right, when Europe and Africa are often displayed in the centre, sometimes results in their inadvertent amputation during the editing process. Good thing the New Zealanders take this all so light-heartedly. I as a Canadian didn’t, however, when the authors referred to Manitoba as a “Canadian state” (p. 35).
Chapters that were most informative, despite the rampant jokiness, were about the phantom African Mountains of Kong; copyright traps on maps; the situation wherein the Shetland Islands always find themselves relegated to map insets (and what to do about it); intentionally deceptive Soviet and East German maps; cartographic mistakes seen on TV news reports; the Marshall Islands stick charts representing ocean swells; and the influence of satellite navigation or GPS on our brains.
Even the bibliography was not immune to the authors’ attempts to insert humour. Without the annoyance of footnotes here, the pair still managed to inject this drivel:
“Sophie Kinsella, Shopaholic to the Stars, Bantam Press, 2014 (but then we gave this book back, ‘cos it turned out it was no help at all)”
and under Other Sources Consulted:
“Mark’s neighbour John, who knows loads of stuff (accessed March 2022 – October 2025)”
as well as:
“Mark Monmonier, How to Lie with Maps, University of Chicago Press, 2018 [end of one page and the following, at the start of another]
Mark Monmonier, How to Lie with Maps, University of Chicago Press, 2018 (we read it twice)”
Oh please! I take pleasure in reading bibliographies to learn about more resources to read and research. These joky inserts ruined the experience, but at least the authors kept it consistent till the very end.