This Way Up: When Maps Go Wrong

by Jay Foreman, Mark Cooper-Jones

The debut book from the YouTube sensation and all-round cartographical nerds, The Map Men!

In their long-awaited debut, Map Men bring their highly infectious enthusiasm for everything map-related to the printed page for the very first time, in a brilliantly entertaining and eye-catching tome…

Genres: Nonfiction, History, Geography, Science, Humor, Audiobook, Travel

Audiobook

Published January 1, 2025

Reviews

[Chloe Jones · Rating 4 out of 5]

Perfect mix of funny and interesting. Map men map men map map map men men

[Louise · Rating 4 out of 5]

(4.25 stars)
I love maps. There, I said it. I’m a bit of a map nerd. Sure, I use my GPS (for the Brits, my “sat nav”) but I also love looking at a map. (For a cross-country road trip, we made sure we had a physical atlas because we didn’t know if we’d always have a cell signal.) So when I learned about this book, I immediately wanted to read it, despite knowing absolutely nothing about the authors, the Map Men, who are quite popular on YouTube. I have since checked out their YouTube videos and I can see why they’re so popular! They’re a lot of fun - and you learn something too.

Anyway, back to this book. I did a mix of reading and listening to the audiobook, as I was really curious how the material would work on audio without the visuals of the maps they were talking about! I can say, it worked very well indeed! The audiobook apparently will come with a PDF of the graphics, but honestly, for much of what I listened to, the actual graphic wasn’t all that necessary. Mark Cooper-Jones and Jay Foreman (the Map Men) do a fantastic job of keeping you entertained, using different accents depending on what they were talking about (such as the chapter on the tragedy of the Donner party or the one about the effort to create an International Map of the World).

There were many times that I had to laugh about the craziness they were explaining, such as the explanation of how most of the northern border of the US (with Canada) was decided upon and some of the nutty results of those decisions.

Thank you to Hanover Square Press and NetGalley for the opportunity to read an advance reader copy of this book and to Harlequin Audio and NetGalley for the opportunity to listen to an advance copy of this audiobook. All opinions are my own.

[Lindsay · Rating 4 out of 5]

I discovered the author's youtube channel earlier this year and promptly watched their entire catalogue. Their mixture of fascinating information, map nerdery and comedy is compelling and addictive. Smart people explaining and sharing their love for something is just brilliant to read or watch. If you're at all familiar with their youtube content, this is more of the same, only with the expanded space they have room to be funnier than ever, sometimes taking the joke a little too far, which is often just far enough.

Take the chapter that transcribes a fictional podcast about the Donner Party. It brilliantly skewers the self-important style of long-form story podcasting, complete with the transcription of ridiculous inserted advertisements.

Or the chapter that's an epistolary of the correspondence of Albrecht Penck, the originator of the "Millionth Map" project, the first (and unsuccessful) attempt to accurately map the entire world at 1:1,000,000 scale which gets derailed by two world wars and the tepid involvement of other countries.

This is quite brilliant. Informative and very funny, just like the author's youtube channel.

[Matthew Yeldon · Rating 2 out of 5]

While I love the historical facts — I genuinely learned a great deal — I absolutely loathe the writing style. I didn’t laugh once and nearer the end of the book found myself rolling my eyes and skimming over swaths of the text because I knew it added nothing but pretty lame attempts at humour. The boys’ schtick works in other media, but not in book form. It just doesn’t. Really disappointing. I’ll be cautious before reading a book by a podcaster again.

[Stephen · Rating 4 out of 5]

enjoyed this book about maps through different stories and our perceptions

[Jonathan Eddyshaw · Rating 4 out of 5]

Map men map men map map book book book

[Neb Nosliw · Rating 5 out of 5]

Map Men (Book), Map Men (Book), Map, Map, Map, Men Men (Book) Men

The format of the presence of men and their accompaniment by (a) map(s) translates all too well into a book format; at times it feels like I have inadvertently come to possess unreleased scripts (though entirely legitimate means), and my oh my how it hath slaked one's thirst.

As an old man, the several references throughout the book to how google maps has made navigation a perfunctory ordeal speak to me; if you are reading this I have (at my own behest) been blindfolded and dropped in the middle of an unspecified wood and I aim to return home using naught but my left ear and the ululations of the local avian populace.... if my next review takes a while this is for entirely unrelated reasons.

[Sam · Rating 4 out of 5]

4.5 stars. I love hearing about someone talk about their special interests.

The audiobook for this was fantastic - their trademark maps videos but in a looooooooonger format. I absolutely love their Monty Python-esque storytelling. I was laughing out loud while listening (much to the chagrin of my husband who repeatedly asked “what the fuck are you doing?” because I had my AirPods in and didn’t share any maps with him.”

Overall this book was an absolute delight and I loved it.

[Michael · Rating 2 out of 5]

Good lord. Barely readable. Some of the most cringe writing I think I’ve ever encountered.

Gets 2 stars rather than 1 because I did manage to squeeze a little bit of learning out of this. But it was painful.

[James S. · Rating 1 out of 5]

I love maps, but this book is extremely silly. Apparently these authors are youtubers. This book reads like a script for one of their videos: drawn-out to cram in as many ad breaks as possible, filled mainly with references to other corners of the internet (like reddit), and full of their incredibly unfunny humor. Pretty bad.

[ezra · Rating 5 out of 5]

4.5 Stars rounded up.

I listened to this on audio and that experience actually works out wonderfully, though I do recommend checking out the maps when you are recommended to do so by the authors (who also narrate this audiobook, which I love)

Every single chapter here was well structured and super fun, though I do feel there was maybe less of a focus on maps than I was expecting? See this less as a book about maps generally, which is somewhat what i was expecting, and more so as a book collecting tales of important or interesting maps throughout history.

Very easy to read, doesn’t take itself too seriously. Absolutely wonderful, fun experience.

[Christine · Rating 4 out of 5]

The authors of this book are popular on YouTube as the "Map Men" looking at mistakes in both old and new maps. I wasn't familiar with the authors' YouTube channel, but their knowledge, personalities, and humor came through in their writing. The result is a book that is both informative and entertaining. There are plenty of photos of maps, too, to better illustrate each chapter.

Standout chapters for me were the one about television boundaries in the UK, mistakes in tv news map graphics, "paper towns" on maps (towns placed on a map to prevent or discover plagiarism), and how maps and routes could have affected the ill-fated Donner expedition. A couple of the chapters didn't seem to translate as well from online show to print format. However, I still learned a lot and enjoyed the book as a whole

I received a free copy of this book from HTP Book and HTP Hive for review consideration. My review is voluntary and unbiased.

[Simon · Rating 3 out of 5]

Really it's a 2 and a half rating ( but Goodreads don't have halves)

Firstly, if you didn't know. this is written by the two guys that have (I hope) and reasonably popular, and IMO, very entertaining YouTube channel. This is their first book, and as I progressed thru the first half, I thought: That chapter would of been better as a YouTube video....and at the end, that's pretty much what I thought of almost all the book. So why isn't it? I don't know, you really have to ask them. I don't know if a book is a financially better money maker, if they just couldn't be bothered making the videos (so just gave you the scripts). But at the end of the day, with all their little quips, annotations and pictures. What would of been amusing, comedic, videos , felt more like a load of lectures written down, some with interesting facts, but just missing the comedy timing these guys show in their videos.

I wouldn't really recommend this as a book, just wait for them to realise what they are good at and watch the (hopefully) video they eventually make.

[Monty Gould · Rating 4 out of 5]

A love letter to when Zoella wrote that book.
-
Could have been 10 videos from their YouTube channel but that’s more of a compliment than a criticism, and I don’t think that would be true of a lot of YouTubers, even ones I like. Everything translates well to still be enjoyable as a book and it’s nice to support content creators you’ve been a fan of for literally a decade.
-
One of the maps jokingly has 100 towns labelled and suggests the reader find the one error, which I think was Braintree and Bishop’s Stortford being switched in position? Surely that’s just for me?

[Reuben Barnes · Rating 4 out of 5]

fascinating & funny, truly gave me a new kind of appreciation for maps. some of the more… experimental sections ran on a bit - felt like mark & jay writing comedy which probably would’ve worked better in video form

[Jason · Rating 3 out of 5]

Sometimes the humor gets in the way of the facts in a way that bothered me but the information in this is interested me more than expected. I've never been the biggest geography nerd but this book kept my attention. And maybe the humor was a part of keeping that interest.

[Rae · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great, now I want to bombard my friends and family with all the fun facts and anecdotes I learned

[Henry Shenton · Rating 5 out of 5]

Map men map men map map map men




men

[Maggie Timlin · Rating 5 out of 5]

Be warned! This contains not just dad jokes but geography teacher jokes.



Have you ever wondered how the people navigated vast swaths of the featureless Pacific Ocean without a chart? Or how some of those unnaturally straight lines ended up being borders between today's biggest countries? Or even why, in the 1980’s, Yorkshire Television broadcast as far south as King’s Lyn? If so this book has the answers for you.

I love the way Mark Cooper-Jones and Jay Foreman take a potentially mundane subject, such as the TV broadcasting stations of the UK in the 1980’s, and make it fascinating. Quirks of geography and cartography are examined in detail in a fascinating and light hearted manner. If you are already a fan of the YouTube channel, you will be able to picture the sketches they use to illustrate their points as you go along.

The final chapter is a bit of a call to arms. It will have you reaching for the paper maps you may have packed away a few years ago and challenging your brain to an unguided GPS free walk. It’s an absolutely cracking read.

[Luke Darrah · Rating 4 out of 5]

Still fascinated by the existence of an audio version of this book (apparently it comes with pdfs)

[Jack Erhardt · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book tricked me into listening to Cotton Eye Joe

[Cary Hillebrand]

Some of you old-timers will remember back in the day, if you needed to travel from point A to point B, you pulled this folded paper thing out of the drawer. For the benefit of the uninitiated, they were called maps. Here, the self called "Map Men" will take you on a humorous journey through maps when they get it wrong or otherwise mislead.

[Цветозар · Rating 2 out of 5]

Огромен фен съм на YouTube канала на Map Men, където двамата автори правят кратки, хумористични и много любопитни видея за карти. Аз си падам картофил като авторите, имам една огромна карта на Европа в навечерието на Кръстоностния поход за Варна закачена в спалнята си, та тази книга трябваше да е точно за мен. За мое огромно съжаление обаче, повечето от главите в книгата не са нито кратки, нито хумористични, нито любопитни.

[Fiona Sinclair · Rating 4 out of 5]

I love maps, I love reading about maps, I love maps facts. This juuuust missed the mark for me.

If you're familiar with the Map Mens content, then this book reads like a script for one of their YouTube videos, and for that reason sometimes the writing grated on me a little, and stories lacked a lot of the depth they needed to be compelling (*cough cough chapter 10 cough cough*).

I think one more critical edit and this could have been perfect, but honestly it was a good time for map lovers, and they definitely don't mince their words when talking about the impact of colonialism and imperialism, which I appreciate from two white British dudes.

[Dan · Rating 4 out of 5]

There are lots of reasons why people enjoy looking at maps: beauty, curiosity, navigation, a desire to understand the spatial dimensions of a set of data, spotting your own house--but in our opinion, there's no map more thrilling than a map that's got something wrong...

What we mean by maps that have 'gone wrong' is maps with big, stinking, awful map blunders, like a country that's gone missing, or a fictional mountain range, or a mis-drawn border that crosses all sorts of boundaries--the sort of mistakes that could lead to the unfortunate map-user getting hopelessly lost. We love them because they provoke the question: What on earth happened here? And the answer is most often a fascinating story.

Truly, Mark Cooper-Jones and Jay Foreman's This Way Up caters to a niche market comprised of fans of their YouTube channel Map Men. Their quirky Python-esque humor is translated into prose, and these sorts of shenanigans may not have appeal to hobby cartographers unaware of their stylings. Nevertheless, I enjoyed this book. I like their irreverent humor. They write fairly decently, reminding me a bit of Douglas Adams if he had focused on cartography.

Each chapter provides an interesting example of how maps could go wrong, but be aware the quality of each chapter varies and is inconsistent. While the fake podcast format they adopt to recount the misadventures of the Donner party ("The Deadly Shortcut") is informative, horrifying, and hilarious simultaneously, the epistolary chapter "The World Map That Wasn't" is a slog and rather uninteresting. Like their YouTube channel: Some skits work, and others perplex.

I recommend this book to anyone who enjoys maps, history, and silly humor. It's an odd, quirky combination, but Mark and Jay make it work for the most part.

SFX: walking boots on a worn footpath.

CALEB OUTDOORS: So this is it--Donner Lake.

SFX: backpacks and camping equipment falling to the floor.

Ava: So, shall we just set up camp here?

CALEB OUTDOORS: Yeah, yeah--go ahead. I'm just gonna sit down and breathe it in.

CALEB VOICEOVER:: Ava and I had trekked to Donner Lake from Donner car park, a few dozen yards to the west. Everything about this place was like a memorial to what happened here--there was Donner Trailhead, Donner Woods, Donner Lake Boat Launch, Donner Ski Ranch. I felt sad the Donners never got to see all this amazing stuff honoring the spot where loads of them died and ate each other.

[Tina Hsu · Rating 4 out of 5]

My review, chapter by chapter:
Chapter 1: The Map That Deleted a Country: very funny!
Chapter 2: The Map That Guessed: very informative!
Chapter 3: The Map of the Wrong City: hilarious! My favorite chapter.
Chapter 4: The Map That Made Up Mountains: tries a little too hard to be funny.
Chapter 5: The Fuzzy Map: snooze.
Chapter 7: The Fictional Map That Became Real, then Fictional Again (and then real again (but only for a bit)): The title gives the ending away.
Chapter 8: The Map in a Box: Poetry gives me a headache. Also - where is the MAP???
Chapter 9: The Paranoid Map: Started reading this trying to mentally make everything rhyme when it doesn't. WHY was the previous chapter a poem???
Chapter 10: The Deadly Shortcut: Not a fan of the fake teacher transcript, but the maps of the Oregon Trail used during the Donner Party days were illuminating.
Chapter 11: The Map That's Blank (Where the Streets Have No Name): Personally, I prefer the named streets of most countries (is that wrong?).
Chapter 12: The Map That Should Have Known Better: I've seen it on instagram/twitter so many times...
Chapter 13: The Map That Broke the Frame: Behind every historical figure is a supportive family member.
Chapter 14: Unreadable Stick Charts (and the Map That Blew Itself Up): The stick charts and their juxtaposition with the nuclear testing was a very effective storytelling method. Really enjoyed the description of the ri-meto navigators.
Chapter 15: The World Map That Wasn't: I don't think this story is effectively told via fictional letters. I had to look it up on Wikipedia, and although the "millionth map" is not an article, it is listed under "International Map of the World (IMW; also the Millionth Map of the World)".
Chapter 16: The Map That's Never Wrong: As someone who frequently got lost before car navigation was a thing, I welcome our Google Maps overlords. But then again, I have no idea which way is north.

[Alexander Miles · Rating 5 out of 5]

I pre-ordered this book since I'm a long-time fan of the Map Men series on YouTube, and true to form, each chapter provides an experience very similar to watching one of their videos. Very well researched information, peppered with even better researched jokes, often delivered with a commitment to the bit that verges on maniacal. As is often the case with books written by video content creators, it was difficult not to hear every line in their voices, goofy accents when depicting historic persons included.

I will say that the format of a book allowed them to commit even harder to gimmicks than their standard medium-length youtube videos, resulting in some of the funnier if more unusual bits of the book. The transcript for not one, but two episodes of an imagined self-important podcast about the Donner party stand out, along side a lengthy poem in rhyme about the Shetland islands' quest to never again be put in a box. In fact most of the chapters depart from the simple author describing historical events format, which does help to keep things fresh. Also, I had to stop and marvel at the two-and-a-half page single sentence after the promise, "in the interest of brevity, we'll keep it to one sentence." All in all a fun book about maps, each separate story stands on it's own and outside of the overt map theme, there's no bigger thesis to wrestle with. Not all of the stories are quite as goofy - Columbus kicking off the exploitation of the Americas and Caribbean and the nuclear testing in the Marshall Islands receive the more somber tone one would expect (mostly).

I'd recommend this book to anyone that has enjoyed the Map Men previously, or even those just in search of a relatively quick, light, and humorous read about maps and geography. It strikes me as just about the most perfect airport book ever printed, in a complimentary way.

[Andrew · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was a very fun, informative read!

I am a gigantic map nerd so when I found out that one of my favourite geography YouTube pages was coming out with a book, I knew I had to get it!

'This Way Up' is a delightful collection of anecdotes about inaccurate maps and their impact on history. Each chapter is fascinating and also hilarious full of the wonderfully dry, British humour one would expect from Foreman and Cooper-Jones.

My favourite topics discussed were the Donner Party, the history of mapping in the Soviet Union, and the nuclear tests at Bikini Atoll. Nonetheless, every chapter is worth the read and a lot of fun.

I would also strongly recommend the audiobook, which is read by the authors and full of extra jokes and banter throughout.

[Erik Aas · Rating 4 out of 5]

(4.5 stars) No secret i’m a bit of a geogradork so this book was right up my alley. While not all chapters are created equal, I feel like I closed this book having learned a lot and I had a lot of fun in reading it.

Maps are great tools that have helped generations navigate and explore this beautiful and twisted planet we live on. But it’s funny that one of my biggest takeaways is to put the map (aka phone) down and allow myself to get lost, flex that hippocampus, and essentially create a map that’s all my own.

I don’t know if the Map Men will ever read these reviews but THANK YOU. What a delight this was.

[Jesús · Rating 3 out of 5]

Let’s say it’s more of a 3.5 ⭐️.
I have really enjoyed it. It is like a Map Men video in book form, for the good and for the bad of that. It is full of information about maps and geography explained in a humorous way. The problem is that some parts don’t work as good in written form as they would have in a video.
Almost every chapter was interesting in different levels. The only one I couldn’t get through was chapter 10, The Deadly Shortcut, that is written as a fictional podcast and I just couldn’t finish it. Maybe if it was written differently I could have found it interesting.
The rest of the book is mostly good, and even inspiring. I might go and get lost someday as they suggest.