At first glance, Imus’ “The Essential Geography of the United States of America” may look like any other U.S. wall map. It’s about 4 feet by 3 feet. It uses a standard, two-dimensional ...

This may seem unbelievable, but in the course of creating this map, I filled my house with 1,001 books. Some are from the 19th century, with cloth bindings; some were published last month.

In 2008, Imus dove head first into the creation of a general map of the entire United States. The work ballooned into the most grueling, demanding project of his entire career. It took 6,000 hours ...