We cringed when we saw the title, but it only took 30 minutes or so to fully get into the swing of this architectural ‘best of’ world tour and put together our shortlist of the places we want to see before shuffling off this mortal coil. Organised in chronological chapters (Ancient World to the Renaissance, Empire to Revolution, Modernism Goes Global, Fast into the Future etc), most entries have pictures and all have architect, location, style and materials recorded. Citations are written by a large cast of architects and architectural historians and are extremely accessible – if you come across a technical term that you don’t know there’s a handy glossary at the back of the book, too. There’s also a handy location index for those keen to plan their next travel itinerary around some architectural ogling.