LONDON QUIZ

By Travis Elborough and Nick Rennison

Little Bookroom. $14.95.

How well do you know London? That is the premise behind this fun book, which contains 400 questions covering myriad aspects of London life and culture. Crime and punishment, shops and shopping, movies and theater all have their place there. The questions (example: "Which ghost is said to haunt the Spaniard's Inn in Hampstead?" Answer: Dick Turpin) are intended, according to the authors, as entry points to the city's history.

Even those who think they know London very well are sure to be stumped occasionally. Who knew, for example, that controversial American TV host Jerry Springer was born in a Highgate underground station after his mother went into labor? Or that a copy of the original, iconic London subway map, designed by Harry Beck in the early 1930s, is on display at the Finchley Central stop? Addictive, entertaining and informative.

June Sawyers, Chicago Tribune

ATLAS OF REMOTE ISLANDS

By Judith Schalansky

Penguin. $28.

To Schalansky, an atlas, which many of us take for granted, is a neglected form of poetry.

"Atlas of Remote Islands" is the anti-guidebook. Schalansky writes about places she has never set foot in. Instead, she "visits" 50 islands around the world. Some of them are world famous (Easter Island, Pitcairn Island, Iwo Jima); some, like the aptly named Lonely Island in Russia, have no inhabitants at all.

There is a haunting quality to the text that is reflected by the stories the author tells. Franklin Island in the Arctic Ocean, for example, is named after Sir John Franklin, the 19th-century polar explorer who never returned from his ill-fated voyage to find the elusive Northwest Passage. Still other islands reside in the thin line between the imagination and reality. More than 600 people may live on the Chilean island of Robinson Crusoe in the Pacific, but it is named after the famous literary figure rather than the real-life castaway, Alexander Selkirk, who is said to have inspired Crusoe creator Daniel Defoe.

Schalansky's book is an armchair traveler's delight.

June Sawyers, Chicago Tribune