DISCOVER JUST HOW LONG IT REALLY TAKES FOR A CAVE TO FORM

“Heart-stopping and relentlessly gripping. Tabor takes us on an odyssey into unfathomable worlds beneath us, and into the hearts of rare explorers who will do anything to get there first.”—Robert Kurson, author of ShadowDivers In 2004, two great scientist-explorers attempted to find the bottom of the world. American Bill Stone took on the vast, deadly Cheve Cave in southern Mexico. Ukrainian Alexander Klimchouk targeted Krubera, a freezing nightmare of a supercave in the war-torn former Soviet republic of Georgia. Both men spent months almost two vertical miles deep, contending with thousand-foot drops, raging whitewater rivers, monstrous waterfalls, mile-long belly crawls, and the psychological horrors produced by weeks in absolute darkness, beyond all hope of rescue. Based on his unprecedented access to logs and journals as well as hours of personal interviews, James Tabor has crafted a thrilling exploration of man’s timeless urge to discover—and of two extraordinary men whose pursuit of greatness led them to the heights of triumph and the depths of tragedy. Blind Descent is an unforgettable addition to the classic literature of true-life adventure, and a testament to human survival and endurance. “Holds the reader to his seat, containing dangers aplenty with deadly falls, killer microbes, sudden burial, asphyxiation, claustrophobia, anxiety, and hallucinations far underneath the ground in a lightless world. Using a pulse-pounding narrative, this is tense real-life adventure pitting two master cavers mirroring the cold war with very uncommonly high stakes.”—Publishers Weekly (starred review) “A fascinating and informative introduction to the sport of cave diving, as well as a dramatic portrayal of a significant man-vs.-nature conflict. . . . What counts is Tabor’s knack for maximizing dramatic potential, while also managing to be informative and attentive to the major personalities associated with the most important cave explorations of the last two decades.”—Kirkus Reviews Includes a 16-pg black and white insert

Six Stanford students journey into one of the deepest and longest caves in North America. A day into their journey, a nuclear war begins from within the U.S. Unable to return to the surface, and unsure what they will find when they do, the Cave will test the strength and survival of each person differently - transforming six individuals into a team, and ultimately...a family.

A SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER Stranger Than Kindness is a journey in images and words into the creative world of musician, storyteller and cultural icon Nick Cave. This highly collectable book invites the reader into the innermost core of the creative process and paves the way for an entirely new and intimate meeting with the artist, presenting Cave’s life, work and inspiration and exploring his many real and imagined universes. It features full colour reproductions of original artwork, handwritten lyrics, photographs and collected personal artefacts along with commentary and meditations from Nick Cave, Janine Barrand and Darcey Steinke. Stranger Than Kindness asks what shapes our lives and makes us who we are, and celebrates the curiosity and power of the creative spirit. The book has been developed and curated by Nick Cave in collaboration with Christina Back. The images were selected from ‘Stranger Than Kindness: The Nick Cave Exhibition’, opening at the Royal Danish Library in Copenhagen in June 2020.

A hairy mammoth takes a cheeky little baby on a thrilling ride through a moonlit landscape populated by a sabre-toothed tiger, a leaping hare, a laughing hyena and even, just maybe, by a big brown bear . . . But where are they going? And what has it to do with the baby's scribblings on the cave wall?Created by the critically acclaimed author Julia Donaldson and Kate Greenaway medal winner Emily Gravett, Cave Baby is a future classic picture book.

Born the bastard son of a Welsh princess, Myridden Emrys -- or as he would later be known, Merlin -- leads a perilous childhood, haunted by portents and visions. But destiny has great plans for this no-man's-son, taking him from prophesying before the High King Vortigern to the crowning of Uther Pendragon . . . and the conception of Arthur -- king for once and always.

This book discusses the karst and pseudokarst of the Upper Midwest, USA, consisting of the states of Minnesota, Wisconsin, Iowa, and Illinois—the first regional synthesis in 40 years. Starting with an overview of the regional geology of what is largely glaciated fluviokarst and paleokarst developed on Paleozoic carbonates, but including other lithologies such as the St. Peter Sandstone and the Ft. Dodge Gypsum, the caves, springs, sinkholes, and karst hydrogeology of each state are described. Special attention is devoted to the region’s longest caves: Coldwater Cave, Mystery Cave, and the Minnesota Cave Preserve caves. Application of tools such as data loggers and LiDAR, with new conceptual models such as hypogenic speleogenesis, has been transformative here. Special topics include lead and zinc mining in the Driftless Area, vertebrate and invertebrate cave fauna near the Laurentide ice limit, the impact and policies of nutrient and herbicide intensive modern agriculture on karst, and paleoclimate studies. The discovery, exploration, institutional history of caving organizations, and show caves of the Upper Midwest, from the year 1700 onwards, are brought up to date. The top 10 historical paradigms of cave and karst science in the Midwest are reviewed. Perspectives on paleontology, archeology, and Native American rock art are included.