Elliot McIntire writes to recommend Portlandness: A Cultural Atlas by David Banis and Hunter Shobe (Sasquatch, October 2015). “It came out last fall, and has a wild and innovative cartography ‘explaining’ the weirdness of Portland. The authors are at Portland State University and much of the data compilation and topic selection came out out a series of classes they have run over the last few years.

“It includes information about such topics as how street names ‘speak the language of the past,’ the weather (official rain totals are at the airport, the driest part of the metropolitan area), areas with Nutrias, punk houses and condos with the hip crowd, food carts, geeks, Portland as portrayed in movies, why it’s Soccer City USA, noise levels in various parts of the stadium during Portland Timbers games, how to get from Union Station to Portland State going by the least number of surveillance cameras, etc.

“Obviously not a comprehensive atlas in the usual sense, but a real hoot, especially for old, or new, residents.”

From the sounds of it, it kind of reminds me of Rebecca Solnit’s Infinite City, which is not a bad thing. Buy at Amazon (Canada, U.K.)