Atlas Obscura PDF Download

Author: Joshua Foer
Publisher: Workman Publishing
ISBN: 076118967X
Category : Travel
Languages : en
Pages : 481

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Book Description
It's time to get off the beaten path. Inspiring equal parts wonder and wanderlust, Atlas Obscura celebrates over 700 of the strangest and most curious places in the world. Talk about a bucket list: here are natural wonders—the dazzling glowworm caves in New Zealand, or a baobob tree in South Africa that's so large it has a pub inside where 15 people can drink comfortably. Architectural marvels, including the M.C. Escher-like stepwells in India. Mind-boggling events, like the Baby Jumping Festival in Spain, where men dressed as devils literally vault over rows of squirming infants. Not to mention the Great Stalacpipe Organ in Virginia, Turkmenistan's 40-year hole of fire called the Gates of Hell, a graveyard for decommissioned ships on the coast of Bangladesh, eccentric bone museums in Italy, or a weather-forecasting invention that was powered by leeches, still on display in Devon, England. Created by Joshua Foer, Dylan Thuras and Ella Morton, ATLAS OBSCURA revels in the weird, the unexpected, the overlooked, the hidden and the mysterious. Every page expands our sense of how strange and marvelous the world really is. And with its compelling descriptions, hundreds of photographs, surprising charts, maps for every region of the world, it is a book to enter anywhere, and will be as appealing to the armchair traveler as the die-hard adventurer. Anyone can be a tourist. ATLAS OBSCURA is for the explorer.

Author: Richard Sugg
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1317354885
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 458

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Book Description
Mummies, Cannibals and Vampires charts in vivid detail the largely forgotten history of European corpse medicine, which saw kings, ladies, gentlemen, priests and scientists prescribe, swallow or wear human blood, flesh, bone, fat, brains and skin in an attempt to heal themselves of epilepsy, bruising, wounds, sores, plague, cancer, gout and depression. In this comprehensive and accessible text, Richard Sugg shows that, far from being a medieval therapy, corpse medicine was at its height during the social and scientific revolutions of early-modern Britain, surviving well into the eighteenth century and, amongst the poor, lingering stubbornly on into the time of Queen Victoria. Ranging from the execution scaffolds of Germany and Scandinavia, through the courts and laboratories of Italy, France and Britain, to the battlefields of Holland and Ireland, and on to the tribal man-eating of the Americas, Mummies, Cannibals and Vampires argues that the real cannibals were in fact the Europeans. Picking our way through the bloodstained shadows of this remarkable secret history, we encounter medicine cut from bodies living and dead, sacks of human fat harvested after a gun battle, gloves made of human skin, and the first mummy to appear on the London stage. Lit by the uncanny glow of a lamp filled with human blood, this second edition includes new material on exo-cannibalism, skull medicine, the blood-drinking of Scandinavian executions, Victorian corpse-stroking, and the magical powers of candles made from human fat. In our quest to understand the strange paradox of routine Christian cannibalism we move from the Catholic vampirism of the Eucharist, through the routine filth and discomfort of early modern bodies, and in to the potent, numinous source of corpse medicine’s ultimate power: the human soul itself. Now accompanied by a companion website with supplementary articles, interviews with the author, related images, summaries of key topics, and a glossary, the second edition of Mummies, Cannibals and Vampires is an essential read for anyone interested in the history of medicine, early modern history, and the darker, hidden past of European Christendom.

Author: Cecily Wong
Publisher: Hachette UK
ISBN: 1523511877
Category : Cooking
Languages : en
Pages : 1107

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Book Description
A New York Times, USA Today, and national indie bestseller. A Feast of Wonder! Created by the ever-curious minds behind Atlas Obscura, this breathtaking guide transforms our sense of what people around the world eat and drink. Covering all seven continents, Gastro Obscura serves up a loaded plate of incredible ingredients, food adventures, and edible wonders. Ready for a beer made from fog in Chile? Sardinia’s “Threads of God” pasta? Egypt’s 2000-year-old egg ovens? But far more than a menu of curious minds delicacies and unexpected dishes, Gastro Obscura reveals food’s central place in our lives as well as our bellies, touching on history–trace the network of ancient Roman fish sauce factories. Culture–picture four million women gathering to make rice pudding. Travel–scale China’s sacred Mount Hua to reach a tea house. Festivals–feed wild macaques pyramid of fruit at Thailand’s Monkey Buffet Festival. And hidden gems that might be right around the corner, like the vending machine in Texas dispensing full sized pecan pies. Dig in and feed your sense of wonder. “Like a great tapas meal, Gastro Obscura is deep yet snackable, and full of surprises. This is the book for anyone interested in eating, adventure and the human condition.” –Tom Colicchio, chef and activist “This exquisite guide kept me at the breakfast table until dinner time.” –Kyle Maclachlan, actor and vintner

Author: Paul Gambino
Publisher: Hachette UK
ISBN: 139961522X
Category : Antiques & Collectibles
Languages : en
Pages : 338

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Book Description
A fascinating insight into the strange world of collectors of the macabre, Morbid Curiosities features 18 unique collections and an extensive interview with each collector, explaining how and why they collect, and showcasing the most remarkable pieces from each collection. The collections include skulls, mummified body parts, taxidermy, occult objects and various carnival, and side-show and criminal ephemera. Detailed captions tell the curious stories behind each object, many of which are being shown outside the private world of their collections for the first time. Morbid Curiosities includes stunning, specially commissioned photography of both the individual objects and the context of how the collector exhibits their work, forming a unique showcase of the bizarre and the intriguing.

Author: Dylan Thuras
Publisher: Workman Publishing
ISBN: 1523503548
Category : Juvenile Nonfiction
Languages : en
Pages : 113

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Book Description
New York Times bestseller! The Atlas Obscura Explorer’s Guide for the World’s Most Adventurous Kid is a thrilling expedition to 100 of the most surprising, mysterious, and weird-but-true places on earth. For curious kids, this is the chance to embark on the journey of a lifetime—and see how faraway countries have more in common than you might expect! Hopscotch from country to country in a chain of connecting attractions: Explore Mexico’s glittering cave of crystals, then visit the world’s largest cave in Vietnam. Peer over a 355-foot waterfall in Zambia, then learn how Antarctica’s Blood Falls got their mysterious color. Or see mysterious mummies in Japan and France, then majestic ice caves in both Argentina and Austria. As you climb mountains, zip-line over forests, and dive into oceans, this book is your passport to a world of hidden wonders, illuminated by gorgeous art.

Author:
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781734062540
Category :
Languages : en
Pages :

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Book Description
A 2-volume, slipcased book about self-taught artist Butch Anthony and the Museum of Wonder, the infamous roadside attraction and gallery in Seale, Alabama.

Author: Megan Rosenbloom
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
ISBN: 0374717427
Category : Antiques & Collectibles
Languages : en
Pages : 156

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Book Description
On bookshelves around the world, surrounded by ordinary books bound in paper and leather, rest other volumes of a distinctly strange and grisly sort: those bound in human skin. Would you know one if you held it in your hand? In Dark Archives, Megan Rosenbloom seeks out the historic and scientific truths behind anthropodermic bibliopegy—the practice of binding books in this most intimate covering. Dozens of such books live on in the world’s most famous libraries and museums. Dark Archives exhumes their origins and brings to life the doctors, murderers, and indigents whose lives are sewn together in this disquieting collection. Along the way, Rosenbloom tells the story of how her team of scientists, curators, and librarians test rumored anthropodermic books, untangling the myths around their creation and reckoning with the ethics of their custodianship. A librarian and journalist, Rosenbloom is a member of The Order of the Good Death and a cofounder of their Death Salon, a community that encourages conversations, scholarship, and art about mortality and mourning. In Dark Archives—captivating and macabre in all the right ways—she has crafted a narrative that is equal parts detective work, academic intrigue, history, and medical curiosity: a book as rare and thrilling as its subject.

Author: Wendy Moore
Publisher: Crown
ISBN: 0307419452
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 354

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Book Description
The vivid, often gruesome portrait of the 18th-century pioneering surgeon and father of modern medicine, John Hunter. When Robert Louis Stevenson wrote his gothic horror story of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, he based the house of the genial doctor-turned-fiend on the home of John Hunter. The choice was understandable, for Hunter was both widely acclaimed and greatly feared. From humble origins, John Hunter rose to become the most famous anatomist and surgeon of the eighteenth century. In an age when operations were crude, extremely painful, and often fatal, he rejected medieval traditions to forge a revolution in surgery founded on pioneering scientific experiments. Using the knowledge he gained from countless human dissections, Hunter worked to improve medical care for both the poorest and the best-known figures of the era—including Sir Joshua Reynolds and the young Lord Byron. An insatiable student of all life-forms, Hunter was also an expert naturalist. He kept exotic creatures in his country menagerie and dissected the first animals brought back by Captain Cook from Australia. Ultimately his research led him to expound highly controversial views on the age of the earth, as well as equally heretical beliefs on the origins of life more than sixty years before Darwin published his famous theory. Although a central figure of the Enlightenment, Hunter’s tireless quest for human corpses immersed him deep in the sinister world of body snatching. He paid exorbitant sums for stolen cadavers and even plotted successfully to steal the body of Charles Byrne, famous in his day as the “Irish giant.” In The Knife Man, Wendy Moore unveils John Hunter’s murky and macabre world—a world characterized by public hangings, secret expeditions to dank churchyards, and gruesome human dissections in pungent attic rooms. This is a fascinating portrait of a remarkable pioneer and his determined struggle to haul surgery out of the realms of meaningless superstitious ritual and into the dawn of modern medicine.

Author: Joshua Foer
Publisher: Workman Publishing Company
ISBN: 1523506482
Category : Travel
Languages : en
Pages : 481

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Book Description
Discover wonder. “A wanderlust-whetting cabinet of curiosities on paper.”— New York Times Inspiring equal parts wonder and wanderlust, Atlas Obscura is a phenomenon of a travel book that shot to the top of bestseller lists when it was first published and changed the way we think about the world, expanding our sense of how strange and marvelous it really is. This second edition takes readers to even more curious and unusual destinations, with more than 100 new places, dozens and dozens of new photographs, and two very special features: twelve city guides, covering Berlin, Budapest, Buenos Aires, Cairo, London, Los Angeles, Mexico City, Moscow, New York City, Paris, Shanghai, and Tokyo. Plus a foldout map with a dream itinerary for the ultimate around-the-world road trip. More a cabinet of curiosities than traditional guidebook, Atlas Obscura revels in the unexpected, the overlooked, the bizarre, and the mysterious. Here are natural wonders, like the dazzling glowworm caves in New Zealand, or a baobob tree in South Africa so large it has a pub inside where 15 people can sit and drink comfortably. Architectural marvels, including the M. C. Escher–like stepwells in India. Mind-boggling events, like the Baby-Jumping Festival in Spain—and no, it’s not the babies doing the jumping, but masked men dressed as devils who vault over rows of squirming infants. Every page gets to the very core of why humans want to travel in the first place: to be delighted and disoriented, uprooted from the familiar and amazed by the new. With its compelling descriptions, hundreds of photographs, surprising charts, maps for every region of the world, and new city guides, it is a book you can open anywhere and be transported. But proceed with caution: It’s almost impossible not to turn to the next entry, and the next, and the next.

Author: Atlas Obscura
Publisher: Workman Publishing
ISBN: 1523501731
Category : Travel
Languages : en
Pages : 177

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Book Description
Let your curiosity be your compass! Created by the same brilliant, intrepid team who wrote Atlas Obscura and reinvented the travel book for a new generation, comes a traveler’s journal that belongs in every backpack, carry-on, messenger bag—or, when not abroad, on the desk, open for keeping notes for the next journey. This ruggedly handsome and sturdy blank journal features a storage pocket in the back (just right for ticket stubs, receipts, boarding passes, and more). The paper is high quality and printed with a variety of lines and grids, perfect for keeping track of itineraries, writing down impressions, making lists, sketching maps and sites, noting discoveries, and more. In addition, the journal includes practical reference, like time zones, weights and measures, and seasonal climate charts. And there’s an appendix of inspiration—a brief guide, with maps, to finding the hidden magic in a dozen of the world’s most interesting cities, New York to Shanghai to Budapest to Tokyo to Cairo. Don’t get off the beaten track without it.