You Are Here: Why We Can Find Our Way to the Moon, but Get Lost in the Mall Paperback – August 10, 2010

This book has several interesting facts and figures contained in it. I was looking for a book on geography related and how we treat the world around us. After an Amazon search I came on this book.It was a pretty good read. At times it reads a little like a text book and drags a bit. However, some of the thoughts and facts about the way humans look and react to everyday environments makes it interesting. Everything from how city design can affect our daily decisions, how we can predict where busy intersections will be years from now, to how casino's are like website designers trying to lure you in and keep you there.Overall, this is not a book I'd give my wife but something I'd bring up at the dinner table.

This book is a great combination of well established research and writing for people without a scientific background.Colin knows how to engage with his audience. I recommend this to anyone with an interest in evidence based Wayfinding.

Too much academic and technical detail. Can be boring

This was a fascinating read--especially the sections comparing human and various animal navigators, especially the desert ants.

Interesting one day read of the definition of "space", "distance", "directions"..author has used many researches on identifying how ants, pigeons, goose, rats and humans have their ways to find their ways out. Yet also bringing out our perceptions on space, directions, office space, home and work architecture..the theme of this book is on how our modern lives and tools have destroyed our abilities to identify and use natural spots/positions to identify our positions and coordinates. Fine examples on Inuit tribes, Polynesians, Puluwot and Bedouin of their exceptional navigational methods in which we modern people have lost the ability of. It is also the way we rely too much on technologies....book also brings out CRP differences between America and EU and how they affect our lives. Interesting read to reflect we only educate our kids in a confined space which only limited our vision and inhibit our natural instinct of explorations...at the end, we should get out of our PS3, Wii, but allow kids to learn from nature where provide infinite and correct geographical pattern recognition. We humans, also have a inner map within ourselves, but it has been shut off from what we see, but not what we feel.

This book was somewhat interesting while it was exploring and explaining how people and animals orient themselves in space (visually and otherwise), although I expected somewhat more than a few anecdotes about how and why people become disoriented.But about two-thirds through the book, the author detours into an all-too-conventional diatribe against suburbs/exurbs, automobility, and urban sprawl. And while these are worthwhile topics in themselves, it's an awkward fit with the rest of this book-- the first two-thirds are about science (not politics), and this makes the remainder seem excessively and inappropriately political.The effect was like going to a museum or concert, only to have the docent or musician lurch into partisan politics ("But of COURSE we all know that **** is an idiot!")-- even if the political discussion is interesting, it's the wrong place and the wrong time. And, the political discussion here didn't seem all that original or interesting-- if you want to read this viewpoint, you'd do better to read something by James Howard Kunstler.And it's a shame-- this reader is left with the sense that this could have been a much better book.

A very slow read. It will put you to sleep and make you throw the book out. Waste of cash.

Scientists often attempt to write books for the "intelligent layperson." Such books frequently miss the mark because the authors aim either too high or too low and their writing is pedestrian. Ellard nails it. This is not a book that you will buy and put off reading. Start it and you will be hooked. Ellard manages to be both funny and informative. This book will appeal to both spatial idiots like me who are forever losing their way and competent navigators. After you read the book, you will amaze your friends and neighbors with your new-found erudition on a host of topics, ranging from animal navigation to architecture. You may also amaze your spouse and children with your new path-finding skills.