Map head by Ken Jennings - Christmas Gift Guide 2011

Some travelers like to obsess over how many geographic regions or countries they have been to in the world, their "life list".  If you are in this group or if you or someone you know if like me and can stare at a map for an hour, I found the book for you.

Ken Jennings won a thousand (estimate) rounds on Jeopardy and now puts his thoughts into the funny things that appear in maps, such as why borders look the way they do, in his new book Maphead: Charting the Wide, Weird World of Geography Wonks   

I didn't know he was a Geography wonk but it makes sense. Learning borders both political and physical is a key to learning why things and cultures are why and where they are.($15)