Unruly Places: Lost Spaces, Secret Cities, and Other Inscrutable Geographies Hardcover – July 8, 2014

I was a little disappointed to not find anything in this book about the Sámi people who inhabit Lapland (Norway, Sweden, Finland, and Russia).

A blend of history, anthropology, and theory, Bonnett's writing here often has the journalistic feel of a series of particularly engaging New Yorker articles. I'm not sure the book will make me think about my own relationship to places and spaces -- which is a slight failure of the theoretical parts -- but there were at least enough "Wow, really?!" moments that I would happily recommend it to friends who are interested in random interesting geographical bits.The places are grouped into the following categories/chapter headings: Lost Spaces, Hidden Geographies, No Man's Lands, Dead Cities, Spaces of Exception, Enclaves and Breakaway Nations, Floating Islands, and Ephemeral Places. I found the first six sections better than the final two. The former had more detail about each place while the latter by their very natures were more theoretical. Like some other reviewers, I would have preferred either a longer book which covered each place in greater detail, or a book of the same length which covered fewer places, leaving room for... greater detail. In a book about places, and peoples' relationships to them, why not write even more about, well, the places themselves?One of the main takeaways for me is that I now want to seek out more information on some of the places that Bonett discusses so briefly. Make of that what you will.** I received a Review Copy of this book via NetGalley **

This book tells of forgotten, destroyed, transformed, impermanent places, small bits of land left over, man and nature that create place and strives for you to imagine a world that's off the map.You can tell the author is very enchanted by these places and you start to feel the same sort of fascination. He wants you to think about the mystery, the history and the possibility.I read many geographical tellings and even in my love for them, I find most of them to be dry but Unruly Places was one of the easiest books to get through. It's full of his own musings and makes cause for you to reimagine your own surroundings and find places you've seen, but not thought of, and imagine a world where place may exist, even if you can't see it.Each chapter tells of a different place, and it's been said that brevity is the soul of wit, but merely five pages per place just wasn't enough. I found myself just getting to know these places when the chapter would end and after 47 chapters it's a little heartbreaking. He visited many of these places and I'm jealous that he got to see their beauty and I'm left with coordinates to peer down from above. It seems to me that a book with less places, more in depth tellings and photos of his travels would have better appealed to me, but nonetheless, I very much enjoyed the book and I have many places to learn more about.

I purchased this book based on what I was able to read in the Kindle Preview. I ended up kind of disappointed. Each chapter starts with a description of one of the author's so-called "unruly places". Some of these are quite interesting - islands that never actually existed, micronations, etc. but some are rather uninteresting and a bit of a stretch (for example, the observation about how children often times stake out hiding places in public places). However, my disappointment was more due to how the author uses each chapter as a springboard to discuss the importance of place (for example, the chapter noted above about children creating hiding spaces, the author argues the this tendency says something about our need to define a place for ourselves even at a young age). It's well written, but I just wasn't really all that interested in the linkage of each place to the author's observations about what each place "means" in terms of how we relate to our surroundings. If you're in a philosophy-lite frame of mind, it might be of interest, but if you just want to learn about some geographically anomalous places, it's less likely to meet your needs.

Early on, Bonnett cites Mieville's "The City and the City". I am a Mieville fan and think that the juxtaposition of the allegorical city within the city fits the modern St. Petersburg/ Leningrad beautifully. In small addictive chapters, the author presents places that were once there, and are three no longer despite their presence on the maps. He explores the cities that have sunk below new versions of themselves, and places that prefer to remain in hiding as never exited. The flow of the planet, aided greatly by its biggest destructor adds and subtracts water side dwellings and lakes. Seas disappear. All of these changes are relatively recent in the history of the world, and provide a a nice relief from the absolutely KNOWN world of Google Maps and satellite tracking. This is a sometimes depressing, but often restful view of the world that even the techies cannot always find.

Grabbed the kindle edition at significant discount, so was mainly expecting a short fun read. And most of the book is just that. Short description ordered by a few themes, mixed with a bit of meta reflection on place as such.The places range from the spectacular to the mundane - and it is at times hard to grasp which ones are written based on actual visit compared to read about.A few places leads the writer of on a slightly rambling meta discussion with himself, ranging far and wide (literally and metaphorically). Better editing or forming these pieces into a more coherent debate would edge towards 5.Great illustrations for each theme. Solid references and even GPS coordinate included.

I enjoyed reading this book overall, though I am not madly keen on the author's writing style. Some of the chapters are more interesting than others, but that is a subjective view and some people will like what I didn't. Overall, worth reading.

Ideal reading for the person concerned

Good read

Thank you

Great book! Recommended.