<DIV><B>It’s time to get off the beaten path</B>. Inspiring equal parts wonder and wanderlust, <I>Atlas Obscura</I> celebrates over 600 of the strangest and most curious places in the world. <BR />  <BR /> Talk about a bucket list: here are natural wonders—the dazzling glowworm caves in New Zealand, or a baobob tree in South Africa that’s so large it has a pub inside where 15 people can drink comfortably. Architectural marvels, including the M.C. Escher-like stepwells in India. Mind-boggling events, like the Baby Jumping Festival in Spain, where men dressed as devils literally vault over rows of squirming infants. Not to mention the Great Stalacpipe Organ in Virginia, Turkmenistan’s 40-year hole of fire called the Gates of Hell, a graveyard for decommissioned ships on the coast of Bangladesh, eccentric bone museums in Italy, or a weather-forecasting invention that was powered by leeches, still on display in Devon, England.<BR />  <BR /> Created by Joshua Foer, Dylan Thuras, and Ella Morton, <I>Atlas Obscura</I> revels in the weird, the unexpected, the overlooked, the hidden, and the mysterious. Every page expands our sense of how strange and marvelous the world really is. And with its compelling descriptions, hundreds of photographs, surprising charts, maps for every region of the world, it is a book to enter anywhere, and will be as appealing to the armchair traveler as the die-hard adventurer.<BR />  <BR /> Anyone can be a tourist. <I><B>Atlas Obscura</B></I> is for the explorer.<BR />  <BR /> “<I>Atlas Obscura</I> is a joyful antidote to the creeping suspicion that travel these days is little more than a homogenized corporate shopping opportunity….<B>Bestest travel guide ever.</B>”<BR />             —Mary Roach, author of <I>Stiff </I>and <I>Gulp</I><BR />  <BR /> “<I>Atlas Obscura</I> may be the only thing that can still inspire me to leave my apartment…this resource is <B>essential for exploring the world and engaging adventure with wit and style</B> (often from the comfort of my bed).”<BR />             —Lena Dunham, creator of <I>Girls</I> and author of <I>Not That Kind of Girl</I><BR />  <BR /> “<B>My favorite travel guide!</B> Never start a trip without knowing where a haunted hotel or mouth of hell are!”<BR />             —Guillermo del Toro, filmmaker, <I>Pan’s Labyrinth</I></DIV>