Atlas Obscura by Joshua Foer, Dylan Thuros, and Ellen Morton

In "The Talk of the Town" of the November 21 issue, The New Yorker has a brief article on this book, the website from which it is derived, and the founders of the website, Foer and Thuros. Third author Ella Morton joined the website a bit later. The book and the website are really huge compendia of oddities-a bit like Robert Ripley's "Believe It or Not," with which we all grew up. The authors insist that the criterion is an ability to inspire wonder. Almost all the scores of entries I have looked at fill the bill nicely Amazingly, the website has ten thousand of them; the book has seven hundred.

In Seattle, for example Atlas Obscura the book lists, among other attractions, a sound garden in Warren G. Magnuson Park and a cement troll beneath the Aurora bridge. A drawing adorns the entry for the sound garden, and a photo authenticates the existence of the troll. For both, a brief paragraph sort of explains the phenomenon, followed by location or address-and the latitude and longitude co-ordinates. We also learn about and see a photo of-on Vashon Island- a child's bicycle embedded in (half swallowed by?) a Douglas fir. Nothing from north of Seattle.

With many strange and wonderful places in Paris, London, almost anywhere in the world, including Antarctica, where we get to see the interior of Ernest Shackleton's cabin, both book and website invite browsing. I have spent more time than I meant to, being drawn from one entry to another. The New Yorker informs us that the entries were crowd-sourced. Every entry whose accuracy I could verify checked out.

Two more oddities/wonders, to whet your appetites. There is Kodinki, a village in Kerala, India, where women bear twins with wonderful frequency: in the world at large the odds of having twins is 1 in 250; in Kodinhi it's mysteriously 1 in 80. And then there is the apartment on the top level of the Eiffel Tower that Eiffel built for himself.

In the book a well done categorical index aids in browsing. But watch out for Halstatt. The index says there is an entry on page 150. Not so. The entry for the fairly well known site of an ancient, deep salt mine is on the website only

That's a very minor blemish in a book I found fascinating. In this holiday season, the book can make a good unusual gift. I have my recipient already picked out.