The Address Book, By Tim Radford

Starting with a Molesworthian recollection of inscribing his address, including "The Earth, The Solar System, The Universe", in a school exercise book, Radford elucidates our location in chapters that move ever outward.

His exploration of each viewpoint brings a host of surprises. Under "The Town", Radford notes that they can endow us with names: the Sundance Kid "once served a prison sentence in Sundance, Wyoming." Under "Continent", we learn that the European alphabet is Phoenician, our numbers Arabic and our food from Asia Minor.