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It Doesn’t Get Bigger Than This: A 30kg Atlas Makes Debut at Book Fair

SHARJAH - For Australian native Gordon Cheers, creating a “larger-than-life” atlas is the pinnacle of all his achievements.

“It doesn’t get bigger than this,” said Cheers, the creator of the monolith 30kg atlas which he lovingly calls the Earth. After completing a worldwide tour, the Earth made its debut in UAE at the Sharjah Book Fair 2008 on Wednesday. It is on display in Hall 3 of Sharjah Expo.

Other interesting publications of the Millennium House like Historica, Dateline and Geologica are also on display at the expo.

His Highness Dr Shaikh Sultan bin Mohammed Al Qasimi, Member of the Supreme Council and Ruler of Sharjah, visited the Millennium House stand at the book fair and congratulated Cheers on the occasion. Speaking exclusively to Khaleej Times, Cheers said, “People in the UAE have a penchant for anything big. They don’t fear to accept or create the biggest of anything.”

The Earth is a product of Gordon’s publishing venture, Millennium House. Gordon and his team put together the 576-page monolith, which contains 154 maps and 800 photographs backed with detailed description of each country’s geography, history and culture. The publisher has produced only 3,000 hand-made copies of the Earth, of which 1,000 have gold-plated corners and the remaining are hand-bound blue editions with silver-plated corners.

The book includes four huge gatefolds, which measure up to 2.2 metres and reveal sharp satellite images, including shots of the earth and sky at night. The book not only covers the physical location of the countries, but also gives details of the social, political and historical events.

“There was so much information put together, that some of the computers of the cartographers crashed during the process of uploading images,” said Cheers.

dhanusha@khaleejtimes.com

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