When I was little, I loved reading books. It seems so much more difficult as an adult: there seems to be so little time, and so little energy, to spend time reading. But I loved it. And I loved the maps I found in the fantasy and science fiction books I read.

Tolkien’s map of Middle Earth remains tattooed on my brain from those early days. I loved the tight, detailed areas of ink where woods, mountains, and rivers were found, surrounded by large chunks of empty space. I often wondered, “what happens in those parts of the world?” There was such a gorgeous balance of detail and open space that made the fictional world feel very much like a real place to me.

The same could be said about C.S. Lewis’ map of Narnia. It was funny when I learned that Lewis and Tolkien were friends; the two maps that had stuck around in my head were made by two pals with their own fictional worlds.

Maps of our planet in history books and science books always fascinated me too. Seeing how the tectonic plates moved around over millions of years to transform Pangaea into the modern continents always fascinated me. Seeing maps on how the Axis powers invaded Czechoslovakia, Poland, the Low Countries and France as the Second World War started was horrifying. The maps themselves and the information they conveyed brought me very deeply into the reality they described. I wondered what it might be like to live in Paris in May of 1940 as the Nazis marched in.