A thorough and intriguing collection of unique locations throughout the world. Each location has a couple pages dedicated to it, which makes this dense read feel much lighter than it is. There are pictures and illustrations throughout to keep the reader engaged. A fantastic read for lovers of geography, history/micro-histories, and the obscure.

The publisher provided ARC through NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

This compilation of places strewn about the globe was an intriguing read. It's important to note that this book was more history-based than travel-based. i.e., this book was not endorsing places you should see or visit, but more places you should know about and the history behind them.

I found this to fit more in the category of a coffee table book rather than a read-in-one-sitting story. If the author would have selected fewer destinations but had gone into more depth on each, it would have been an attention-grabbing read. Additionally, the chosen destinations centered on man-made buildings and architecture, so I suggest checking out Atlas Obscura for a more comprehensive atlas.

Overall, I enjoyed the style of this book with the inclusion of the coordinates and map of the destination. It is a read I would recommend to history and architecture buffs or anyone looking for a unique coffee table read.

Like many (most?) people, I enjoy traveling, and I enjoy reading about exotic and interesting places in this world. So I was really looking forward to “Atlas of Improbable Places: A Journey to the World's Most Unusual Corners” by Travis Elborough. For travel ideas, for inspirations, for exploring places that right now are rather restricted to us.

And I have to admit I was a bit disappointed. There’s nothing wrong with the places chosen: most of them were quite interesting, either from a geographical or historical perspective. The 51 places are divided into six categories: Dream Creations, Deserted Destinations, Architectural Oddities, Floating Worlds, Otherworldly Spaces, and Subterranean Realms. These are spread out all over the earth, from squatters in California to secret Soviet cities, to asbestos mines in Australia. There’s also nothing wrong with Mr. Elborough’s writing – his descriptions are interesting, he hits the high points and also displays a touch of humor. The pictures and maps could be better, but they don’t really detract from the description and add a glimpse that makes one want to know more.

No, the reason I was disappointed was that this book was just too short! You have one or two pages about each location, just when the story starts getting interesting we move on to the next area. Each section could easily be two to three times longer and still capture my imagination. Instead, it makes me want to go read more elsewhere, and leaves me frustrated.

I requested and received a free advanced electronic copy from Quarto Publishing Group – White Lion /
Aurum via NetGalley. Thank you!

Interesting timing for this one, coming as we take tentative steps out of a time when all places beyond the end of the road were improbable. Not making any mention of that in the introduction is just one of the ways it feels like a time capsule – see also an entry for Denmark's hippy nexus Christiania that only nods at some of the earlier steps in the long recent dance where the straight world has been trying to crack down on it, amid suggestions that its commune ethos has corroded into simple criminality. As for China's never-finished Wonderland theme park, the entry there admits that it was levelled the best part of a decade ago, and shouldn't an atlas at least pretend to be of the now, rather than an Atlas Of Places Which Have At Some Point In History Been Improbable? Doing a bit of a digging, it turns out that the book is five years old, and that this is just a reprint, which explains some of that – though once or twice I did spot a 2020s addendum, and you'd think in the intervening years they might have found a moment to fix things like the reference to "the Byzantium Empire", or telling us how in tribute to Gagarin, departing cosmonauts "all urinate on the back rear tyre of the bus". London's Mail Rail, one of a handful of locations I've visited myself, is inexplicably the Rail Mail throughout. Walter Benjamin is given the credit for 'History is written by the victors', a phrase recorded as being used before he was born - ironically, by a Confederate. You get the idea.

Or perhaps the time could have been used to spice up the pictures which, at least in the Netgalley ARC, consist only of one monochrome picture per entry, and not terribly evocative ones - a shame when similar atlases of oddities became books to conjure with when I was a kid (or even now – look at Atlas Obscura for how to make a like project a delight). And even then they don't always seem to match the text. San Juan Parangaricutiro, for instance, was abandoned after a volcanic eruption which took a very slow yet entirely inexorable year to reach the town (get yer climate change metaphors here!); the words say the church's "tower and the altar were spared entirely and stand to this day marooned in a grim expanse of solidified lava", right under a photo which appears to show them wreathed in abundant, resurgent vegetation. The entry on a former Soviet science city mentions but does not show its flag, and OK, Google images can now fill the gap, but why when you have the option would you not include an image as entirely kick-ass as a bear splitting an atom with its bare paws*? I guess I should at least credit the book with alerting me to look for that, or with letting me know that Portmeirion's Clough Williams-Ellis got an invite to go architect for Stalin, which he very sensibly refused (apart from the whole life-and-limb bit, I can only imagine the results looking like Poundbury). There are other intriguing entries, to be sure, on Lithuania's hill of crosses, or Mexico's island of dolls. And if some are tragedy (or at least spookshow) then others are farce, like Senegal's African Renaissance Monument, essentially Wakanda as realised by North Korean workers, and with the statesman who proposed it getting a kickback on entry fees. But all in all, this feels like a missed opportunity.

*Remember: atoms are never guaranteed bear-proof, only bear-resistant.

The synopsis of this book sounded promising as I love getting off the beaten path. Easy to read and enjoyable for history and travel buffs, I thoroughly enjoyed this. I received an e-book from NetGalley in return for an unbiased review.

A great compendium of unusual places —invlufing many I had never heard of—that will appeal to anyone interested in travel and geography

This is an eclectic book. The Atlas of Improbable Places is not a travel guide. It is a look at diverse Dream Creations, Architectural Oddities and places once useful that have now been abandoned. Some places I was familiar with like the original London Bridge being in Nevada or Hearst Castle on the California coast. Some were interesting because I've never know about them. For example, abandoned listening stations from the cold war or coastal resorts standing empty. This book is great for thumbing through and reading about the oddities or what makes them unique. Each location includes a black and white photo and good descriptions of the site along with geographical coordinates. But there is no effort made to distinguish places that are visitable versus ones that you can't visit or even reach. I enjoyed reading the book and finding the few places I've seen. Thank you NetGalley and Quarto Publishing Group-White Lion for a temporary ARC ebook in exchange for an honest review. (3.5 stars)

Unfortunately unable to read as couldn’t download to my kindle so will let others review this book.

From description sounds good.

An amusing jaunt through “improbable” places around the world. The author doesn’t claim to have visited these places, so it’s not like it’s a travel guide; the term atlas has been chosen deliberately.

The chapter headings give a suggestion of the sorts of places covered, although sometimes that’s a stretch.
Dream Creations - sometimes an individual’s dream, sometimes more a societal aspiration;
Deserted Destinations - deliberately, as in Wittenoom in WA, abandoned due to asbestos; or because people just… drifted away;
Architectural Oddities - did you know that the London Bridge built in 1831 today stands in Arizona?
Floating Worlds -like the Palms; mostly islands;
Otherworldly Space, which seems to be mostly about death;
And Subterranean Realms - I did not know there was an underground railway in London dedicated to mail delivery.

Overall it’s a fun read, best viewed as one to dip into I think rather than reading cover to cover in a single sitting. Don’t expect a lot of detail about most places; this is a taster, not a through investigation of most places.

This book covers the most bizarre places on our planet and it was a delight to read through. Each location is only a few pages long, and I would"ve loved to hear more about them, but other than that I genuinely enjoyed it!

It made me travel to new places and to some I already knew. It's well written and kept me turning pages as I wanted to discover more.
It could be a great way to create an itinerary around the world.
Highly recommended.
Many thanks to the publisher and Netgalley for this ARC, all opinions are mine

Completely fascinating book,an author who brings us to places most of us had never heard of or seen.Love how he thanked his wife for accompanying him on this unusual trip.Perfect for arm chair traveling unique so well written will be recommending and gifting this completely engrossing Atlas.#netgalley #quarto

The Atlas of Improbable Places takes you on a journey to a variety of different locations. While some will not be known by many, such as Varosha an abandoned tourist resort in Cyprus; others such as Aokigahara Forest and The Palm in Dubai are more widely known.

The Atlas of Improbable Places is split into 6 seperate sections: Dream Creations; Deserted Destinations; Architectural Oddities; Floating Worlds; Otherworldly Spaces and Subterranean Realms.

While each location mentioned had a brief but detailed description around the place and how it came to be, I struggled to connect with each location and understand it.

Also, I wish that more pictures were included. I feel like when you are talking about locations, the best way to showcase them is through photographs. Since I have never heard of or seen what some of the places look like, photographs would have been highly beneficial to this book to help the reader understand what location you are reading about.

I personally found the Atlas of Improbable Places to be a tad confusing. It did not seem to know exactly what it wanted to be, and unfortunately I did not find it a very engaging read like I had hoped.

Doesn't particularly live up to it's title. This book seems to thrive on click-bait like inflammatory and overly-opinionate journalism rather than straight-forward factual travel writing.

This is a fun, quirky travel book. It's not really a practical guide and more of a reference book to use while sitting at home and thinking of being else where. It highlights odd locations from around the world, most are man-made while a few are natural. Each location has a black and white photograph and a 1-2 page description. Some of the places I have been to like Christiania in Copenhagen and Hearst Castle, while others I did not know existed. While it does provide the location's coordinates, for most of the locations the book provides no information as to whether or not it is open to visitors or is even still in existence. This book would be a fun gift for the person who has been everywhere.

I really enjoyed reading this book! The places included were super interesting and I had not previously heard of most of them. I liked that places from all over the world were included, not just far away countries that I will likely never visit. It was very interesting to see these places in not only my country, but one was even in my state! This book is great for people that like to travel and learn about monuments and places. I thought the amount of information for each place was the perfect amount, not too much but I definitely learned a lot!

I promised to write an honest review in exchange for an advance reading copy from NetGalley. And if I am to be totally honest, I don't see where this is anything more than a knock-off of Atlas Obscura, but not quite as good (except in the writing of the text).

This is the third in a series written by Travis Elborough, with maps by Martin Brown, the first to be published by National Geographic (as fas as I can tell -- the others seem to have been published by elsewhere). Curiously, the second entry, Atlas of Vanishing Places, has beautifully detailed maps and multiple color photos per entry, while this one, like the first, has rudimentary maps and only a single black and white photo per entry -- disappointing.

Also curious is the raison d'etre for this book -- as a compendium of unusual places one can visit. On one hand, many of these places cannot be visited, like the asbestos mining city in Australia. On the other hand, some of these places are hardly secret -- Hearst Castle is neither improbable, unexpected, nor unknown. But most of all, most of these places don't even seem to be interesting destinations to visit so much as interested subjects to write about.

The writing -- that's the saving grace. All other quibbles aside, Elborough writes good back stories for each of his locales, coming at them in every opening paragraph from interesting, often unexpected angles, lacing every entry with a wry sense of humor. But most of all, he tells a good, well-researched back story quite succinctly.

Bottom line, if I wanted a handsome coffee table book of unusual destinations, I'd get the Atlas Obscura book. Online, I'd access their web site -- with this book, I had to go to Google to get good pictures, better maps, and more info, as opposed to just clicking links online (OK, so my complaint here is based on laziness). There is also a good series of books, at least in the United States, called Weird [state name] that covers the same territory (though not as well written). And of course there's always Lonely Planet.

I requested Atlas of Improbable Places because I am a traveler interested in offbeat places -- I've been to all seven continents, 47 different countries, 37 of the United States. But I got very little travel inspiration from this book (maybe some islands off the west coast of Ireland). On the other hand, as a student of history, I loved the text of this book and learned quite a bit from it.

I received this ARC in exchange of my honest opinion.
I have always loved travelling and always m on the hunt for cool places. There are some unknown places mentioned here which made this read super interesting. Probably the only way I could travel this year

This atlas is perfect for those who are curious, or for those who want to travel and see sights that are not listed in most travel guides.

One such listing is the Star City, a training facility for astronauts. To test the ability to endure long durations of isolation as they travel to Mars and beyond.

Another is the abandoned Disney land style theme park in China. This is one that some people would have already heard about. The park was halted mid construction because of land disputes.

What would have made this book more interesting would have been colored pictures instead of the black and white which I found boring.

In a time when exploring the world is something to look forward to but due to pandemic restrictions not easily doable, travel books are a great way to discover new places and stir up anticipation for the time after. Travis Elborough has found places which are not on the average agenda for a trip. In the subtitle, he calls them “the world’s most unusual corners” and I couldn’t agree more with that.

He classifies his finding into six groups: dream creations, deserted destinations, architectural oddities, floating worlds, otherworldly places, and subterranean realms. In each, he presents several destinations which are distributed all over the world with a majority in the USA and Europe. Each spot is accompanied by a text of two to four pages explaining what makes the place outstanding.

The author offers a great variety, from formerly closed soviet cities and other deserted military places over utopian places like Christania and villages abandoned after wars or other incidents to modern creations like the artificial island “The Palm” and underground ways which were never meant to be discovered.

It is a great coffee table book or gift to somebody who likes to travel and to learn about never heard of places. The information has the perfect lengths to take up the book now and again and just read and learn a bit about this planet’s wondrous locations.