The Book of Legendary Lands by Umberto Eco

[abracanabra]

I love Umberto Eco's fiction. This is not that. This is part encyclopedia, part coffee table art book. It did not entice me into reading it all the way through, though I was entertained by skimming. It catalogs lands and places of legend, lifting out the passages that describe them in myths and older texts, and illustrating them with the paintings they've inspired. It's beautiful and interesting. Not something I need to own, but definitely something that I'll need to read again if I ever write something set in one of those mythic lands. Also, now I know that Columbus believed that the world was shaped like a pear, or like a round ball with a woman's teat on it, with the Terrestrial Paradise being located "at the summit of that place that resembles the nipple of the pear." So there's that.

Comments

[jasondwittman.livejournal.com]

Are you familiar with The Dictionary of Imaginary Places, by Alberto Manguel and Gianni Guadalupi? It has listings for everything from Middle Earth, to LeGuin's Earthsea, to the Abbey from Eco's The Name of the Rose.

Jason

[cloudscudding.livejournal.com]

Nope. Sounds along the same lines, though.