Subterranea is surprisingly informative and enjoyable to read. The focus is on things below ground and includes lots of colorful photos, maps and diagrams. The book is broken into four sections. Creation (things in nature) which includes many caves and even a chapter on Pando, an ancient forest of cloned trees that are connected underground, in my home state of Utah. Ancient History, man made structures like terra-cotta soldiers or the buried city of Herculaneum. Modern History and Today cover the 1900s and 2000s respectively. The Large Hadron Super Collider is covered, Helsinki's Underground City and Jerusalem's, modern-day underground cemetery. Each site chosen was interesting and not always what I was expecting. The writing gives information about the site, history and cultural importance. The book includes places on every continent and is not western centric. The is a genuinely interesting coffee table book. Thank you to NetGalley and Timber Press for an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Chris Fitch’s Subterranea: Discovering the Earth’s Extraordinary Hidden Depth is a deeper look at the Earth beneath the surface. From recreational to geographical and scientific exploration, Fitch explains underground wonders. With full color photographs and detailed diagrams, the book is visually appealing while simultaneously providing a plethora of accurate information for the casually interested. Introductory information is included for subterranean caverns around the world, along with historical uses, explorations, and evolution.

This book is geared to those with a burgeoning interest in cave systems. While it does have full color photos, this is not a book for those just looking for gorgeous pictures of caverns. The photos included are nice but are not the focal point of the book and are limited compared with the larger information given.

A beautiful book of pictures, maps and details on caves around the world. Included are some in the new world and the old. A great book to learn more about different areas. Not a book to just sit and read, but a reference book on different regions and cultures. Especially love the ones from Mexico and China. Would highly recommend.

Subterranea was filled with facts and pictures of the worlds underground spaces. It gives the location, name, and a brief description. The pictures are stunning. Everything from New Zealand glow worm caves to cave paintings in France. The places included are a good balance between natural and man made. There are ancient and modern caves. It is interesting and beautiful.

A Great, Surprising Informative, Collection

Going back to Benson Bobrick's 1981 subway history, "Labyrinths of Iron", I have been a fan of books that take us underground. This volume is wide ranging, steps beyond the usual subjects, offers just enough photos and maps to illustrate the text and whet the appetite, and entertains with an engaging, congenial, but crisply informative, narrative. In short, it is a success across the board.

The books is loosely organized by topic - natural caves and underground rivers, ancient structures, and modern subterranean projects. You'll get caves and cenotes - longest, deepest, weirdest, and most mysterious. As to the ancients, you'll travel from the mausoleum of the first Qin Emperor, to the Qumran Caves, to Cappadocia. Modern times bring us from the London Underground to Cooper Pedy to the Kolwezi cobalt mines. In all there are 40 different chapters.

Apart from the photos and maps, which are fine but easy enough to find online, the other appeal here is our author's stylistic approach. The text is engaging, but not jokey or breezy. Descriptions, background, and history are truly informative, and even familiar sites, (those terracotta soldiers), get a fresh treatment.

So, this was a fine, entertaining, and informative find that fit quite nicely on my underground adventures shelf. A great armchair find.

(Please note that I received a free advance will-self-destruct-in-x-days Adobe Digital copy of this book without a review requirement, or any influence regarding review content should I choose to post a review. Apart from that I have no connection at all to either the author or the publisher of this book.)

Subterranea is the literary equivalent of ‘I came for X and I stayed for Y’; in this specific case, I asked for it because of the blurb & cover combo, and I stayed because of the contents. Speleology–and anything speleology-adjacent, really–is not an uncharted territory for me, but so far I never had the chance to explore the underground world in such detail.

What did I find down there?

Let me show you.

**

Subterranea peels back the outer layer of the earth and reveals the fascinating hidden underground spaces that you cannot see from above the ground. These places include the poisonous caves in Mexico, full of deadly hydrogen sulphide, where the toughest fish in the world manage to survive; the magnificent Roman sunken palace that was lost beneath the streets of Constantinople for centuries; the ‘Door to Hell’ that was accidentally created by Soviet gas explorers in the 1970s and has been on fire for nearly half a century; and the drug-smuggling tunnels between Mexico and the USA.

Lavishly illustrated and packed with maps and photographs of little-explored locations, Subterranea is the unique, untold, and utterly unforgettable story of our planet from the inside.

240 pages
Travel
Timber Press
Goodreads

**

Cover: What a great pick. There are many nice pictures featured in Subterranea, but this Yucatan Cenote is so eye-catching.

Yay!

- Subterranea is a +200 pages long travel through the depths of the Earth, courtesy of Chris Fitch. After donning a rock-climbing helmet, Chris takes us on a worldwide tour featuring both natural and artificial caves, with an eye for the lesser-known ones. The concept behind this book is interesting, it’s well thought-out, and the execution is good, too. Structure-wise, I appreciate how every chapter starts with an anecdote or a historical event; those are literary hooks, and Chris knows how to use them.

- Stunning pictures, just as I expected them to be. I’ll admit I’ve been more taken by the natural locations rather than the modern ones but regardless, all the images are crisp and full of details. They tell a story, which is the main point of photography. Bravo!

- Maps add to the experience, and they make my geography nerd heart swell. Once again I prefer the natural ones, but it’s been cool to see tunnels and caves superimposed on town maps. Plus, it’s a good touch; as a reader, I feel like I’m seeing the big picture rather than focusing on a small spot.

Special mention:

- Guatemala Sinkholes. I’d be hard pressed to think about a scarier natural event.
- Darvaza Gas Crater, Turkmenistan. Breathtaking pictures paired with a cool desert legend. Setting the gas alight, really?
- Coober Pedy, Australia. It’s an underground town! I’m already packing my stuff, y’all.
- Basilica Cistern, Turkey. The head of Medusa turned upside down, I love it.
- Cueva de Villa Luz, México. What a cool picture! The sulphuric acid gives the water a milky appearance.
- Waitomo Caves, New Zealand. Glow worms. No, I’m not kidding.

Nay!

- I have some minor issues with the writing itself. There are a few run-on sentences and a little too many adverbs for my tastes.

TL;DR

4 stars on GR. It was an enjoyable read!

A fine collection of introductory essays about a wide variety of subterranean locations around the world - some natural, some manufactured by humans or animals. Almost every entry includes at least one interesting fact, and many fascinating images accompany the text. My only real complaint was the brevity of each entry. In many cases I was left wanting to know much much more about the location being described.

There is another world beneath our feet, and Fitch reveals it to us in all its glory. From natural places like the swimming hole cenotes, to palaces and ships underneath city streets to drug smuggling tunnels this books is full of the fascinating, hard to believe world underground. Jaw dropping photography is the cherry on top of this incredible sundae

I received a free electronic ARC of this Tweens/Teens novel from Netgalley, P. K. Hawkins, and Severed Press. Thank you all for sharing your hard work with me. I have read this sci-fi of my own volition, and this review reflects my honest opinion of this work. I am pleased to recommend P K. Hawkins to friends and family. This is a tightly woven tale told very well.

Kettle Hollow, Wisconsin is a tiny, insular town. Six hundred souls rubbing along together, trying to keep life in focus and purring along nicely. Except for the grouchy pharmacist, it all seems to be working out nicely. And then, while our four intrepid kids are off at the old quarry perfecting their BMX biking stunts, the unimaginable happens.

The youngest at 11, Murky was just along for the ride because their mother made Laura take her. George - or Henderson, as he prefers to be called and Jesse are serious BMXers but not in the same class as is Laura. And when they return to town as the sun goes down, they each notice the complete lack of people separately before mentioning it. No people, no lights in the houses, no sounds of normal at all in Kettle Hollow.

They don't get scared until they run into the soldiers. And they don't get mad until they are told that their families and some more soldiers have all disappeared down a giant sinkhole and the military is set to blow it and Kettle Hollow up so no one else falls in. No effort will be made to retrieve the missing citizens. But that won't do. And despite the uncertainty and danger, it will have to be this undaunted foursome who goes down and rescues the townfolks. Will they find their friends and neighbors? Will they make it back to the surface? Will Kettle Hollow still even exist? Only time will tell...

This book is a lot more than I expected. I requested it thinking it was going to be some pretty Instagram spots but it's a great book with lots of informations and history. I haven't been to any of those places yet but I added some to my list. I received a free digital copy of this book from NetGalley in exchange for my honest review

SUBTERRANEA by Chris Fitch

This has beautiful pictures of beautiful places, complete with a few pages that tell about what each place is when it was discovered and what if any, humans used it for. As a former caver, I have a great appreciation for the subterranean world.

I am sure I did not appropriately appreciate the splendor of this book since I had an electronic version. A hard or softcover version would be coffee table worthy, to awe family members and visitors, alike.

Highly recommend.

I consider myself fortunate to have received a complimentary copy of #subterranea from #netgalley I was under no obligation to post a review.

I could spend hours and hours lost in the secret places unearthed in this book. Each chapter provides vivid photographic images with an informative description of the location, history, and significance. Each chapter merely provides an intro, hardly enough to satiate any interest in any one particular location, and compels me to study and learn more. Igniting a desire for further research is a clear indication of a great book! I received a complimentary copy from the publisher via NetGalley and all opinions expressed are my own, freely given.

This was fun. What we get are short snapshots of subterranean environments, with relevant schematics, diagrams, maps and photos, all designed to alert us to intriguing pockets of our world we too often don't think about due to their being underground. Starting with natural cave systems, we scatter all over the world looking at superlatives, and I will admit the entries sometimes frustrated with how brief they were. Wanting more from a book can be a sign of it being a good as well as a bad one, mind – and this is certainly not a bad one.

We do leave the natural cave systems of note behind, for other indications of humanity from prehistory, and any date since then. So come on board prepared to have a look at the Dead Sea Scroll Caves, and the Large Hadron Collider both. Compare and contrast the wildlife on French cave walls with that stored in freezers under Svalbard in the Global Seed Vault. Get dwarfed by Tokyo flood relief systems, and squeeze through Vietnam's Cu Chi tunnels. Yes, the entries generally are over and done with after four pages of text at most (Cappadocia getting a lot more content than anything else, I think), and some times you do doubt the worth of all the artwork included, but if you are happy with these being just postcard-sized introductions, then this will be an enjoyable read. A perfect book would have perhaps told me more at times, and I did find this one best dipped into in bite-sized pieces, even when other books can be devoured A-Z, but this generally does what it set out to do.

I love this book about all things under ground it’s very informative and also very beautiful. It definitely peaked my interest at all things below the surface.

This book was a lot more than I was expecting. I was expecting photographs with brief descriptions, but this book went so much farther including maps and diagrams and thorough explanations of the site’s history, geological and cultural significance, and current condition. The book is divided into four sections: Creation – natural phenomena, Ancient History – man-made structures of the past, Modern History – 1900s, and Today – 2000s, each with 10 locations across the globe. I loved the geographic representation in the book including locations from all seven continents. Unlike a lot books that can feel very euro/western-centric this book struck a good balance of locations and cultures. I am ashamed to admit that I’ve been to a few of the locations in Europe, while I have not been to the Panda Aspen Tree which is literally 2.5 hours from my house. I felt like I learned a lot about each location without there being an overwhelming amount of information. I liked that the author didn’t shy away from controversial issues, especially in the today section, with the inclusion of smuggling tunnels along the U.S./Mexican border and cobalt mines in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. With my love of geography, geology, history, and geopolitics this was the perfect book for me.

Thank you to NetGalley and Timber Press for the ARC in exchange for an honest review.