Monday, April 5, 2010

Irreference » Lost States

Lost States


Buy this book...seriously, click the link and go buy this book.

Quirk Books sent me this book by Michael J. Trinklein to review. It is fabulous! I truly feel if all education were this entertaining then no one would ever quit school. Mr. Trinklein is not only full of tidbits of trivia, he's a funny guy and a great writer. Every single page had me laughing and it's all fascinating too.

Not all the items in this book are actually states that didn't make it, sometimes it's something he found fascinating and had to share. The best one was "Howland" a very small island in the Pacific Ocean. It's only 300 acres in size and no one lives on it. It was used as a landing a refueling station for planes heading for America. Amelia Earhart was supposed to land there, and later on the Japanese bombed the hell out of it during the war. The true irony is for all the work that went into it, and the work in destroying it, no plane ever actually used it.

There are some that did make it, but not in the way some people wanted. Dakota on page 37, talks about 4 different proposals for the Dakotas and none of them really made it. One of them is very close, but North Dakota would really rather just be called "Dakota" and lose the "North" for good.

There are even countries that have been considered as states. Greenland, Iceland, even Great Britain are all in here, along with others from around the globe.

Being from Michigan, I love the part about the upper peninsula breaking away and becoming "Superior." We all learned how no one wanted that land, Michigan was after a tract of Ohio, but was handed the UP as a parting gift. Yeah! - not. Please don't write the hate mail, I love the UP. But this happened before (way before) there was ever a bridge. Imagine having to travel through Wisconsin any time you wanted to go up there. I have done it and it kind of makes you want to roll over and die from boredom, imagine doing it by horse? But it probably won't ever happen since even now not a lot of people live up there.

So, if you enjoy light-hearted humor, interesting factoids and good writing, go buy this book. You'll even find a large map by unfolding the book jacket.

Irreference.com - to buy Lost States
NPR review and interview with Michael J. Trinklein
Find Quirk Books on FaceBook

(I was not paid for this review, although after reading the book I'm super grateful for Quirk Books sending me a copy just for my opinion.)

3 comments:

  1. Nice review! I'll put it in my online shopping cart. :)
    The kiddo will love this. She's very much into fun factoids.

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  2. sounds like a fun read :-)

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  3. Loved the review - it's the kind that makes you want to run to the closest book store. As everything from Quirk, it must be awesome. Thanks for sharing!

    Kisses from us.

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