WHERE AM I? Why We Can Find Our Way to the Moon but Get Lost in the
Mall
By
Colin Ellard
My reasons for choosing this book to review were very personal; I
am extremely "directionally challenged" and Colin Ellard is a local
author for me. Interestingly enough, I read this book while I was
traveling.
This book starts out with an amusing anecdote about getting lost
while on a camping trip and then moves into the mechanics of how
navigation through both time and space is learned, perceived and
negotiated.
Being prepared for a text book type read, this reader was
pleasantly surprised. WHERE AM I is obviously a well researched
book and is filled with facts presented in a logical and
entertaining way. This book examines travel in every form, from
negotiating our own homes to traveling the world and right through
the mysterious world of cyberspace. It looks at how all life forms
manage to navigate through their life-space and why some are more
adept at it than others.
Colin Ellard is an experimental psychologist at the University of
Waterloo, Ontario. It is encouraging to me that admits he still
gets lost in his (and my) home town of Kitchener, Ontario. This
book held my attention through a turbulent plane ride back to
Canada, and despite the information presented, I still managed to
"misplace" my car in the Park and Fly parking lot.