This is a fantasy, a la C.S.Lewis, about twins (boy and girl) who find their way into a parallel world in which there are strange creatures, strange people, strange topography, and evil kings and warlocks trying to rule the entire land of Messmeria. The twins join the "good" forces to help overcome the evil ones.
"The Green Tunnel, A Hiker's Appalachian Trail Diary" is the true-life story of a retiree's joys, challenges, and physical rigors while thru-hiking the entire 2,185 miles of the Appalachian Trail in one great epic walk. The book's title refers to the nickname, Green Tunnel, given by hikers for deeply-shaded trail sections that cut through dark and densely-wooded forests. All too often, tree canopies block out all sunlight or views of the sky, sometimes for hundreds of miles. Readers follow RW as he walks north, starting out from the cold winter mountains of Georgia, until he finally reaches Maine during the height of New England fall colors. Along the way, readers encounter a fugitive from the FBI, internationally-known backpackers, the homeless, plus many other hikers seeking adventure or redemption. Trail angels often come to the rescue. Journal entries are frequently peppered with humorous and historical anecdotes, along with colorful descriptions of the swiftly changing scenery and seasons. Readers will also find a good deal of useful backpacking information, from the many firsthand tips and advice on equipment, food, trail culture, lodging, and the hazards of wilderness hiking. ABOUT THE AUTHOR Patrick Bredlau (Trail name: RW) has lived most of his life in the flat lands of Illinois. His life-long enthusiasm for the outdoors was fostered by the Boy Scouts of America during his childhood, and later as a Boy Scout leader on many hiking and backpacking trips. His favorite sports are backpacking, fishing, and sailing. His passion for backpacking led him to hike some of the most spectacular natural locations in the United States and Canada, including the Rocky Mountains, Grand Canyon, Glacier National Park, and Banff National Park. As a sailboat racer, he has participated in the prestigious Chicago to Mackinac Island race, as well as other races on Lake Michigan. After a long and successful 38-year career as a federal bank examiner and instructor, Patrick retired in 2013 to spend more time with his family and enjoy the outdoors. His first major adventure after retirement was to successfully thru-hike the entire 2,185 miles of the Appalachian Trail in 2014.
The New York Times Bestseller! The story of an outcast boy, his eccentric dad, and the scary underground world they discover through secret TUNNELS.14-year-old Will Burrows has little in common with his strange, dysfunctional family. In fact, the only bond he shares with his eccentric father is a passion for archaeological excavation. So when Dad mysteriously vanishes, Will is compelled to dig up the truth behind his disappearance. He unearths the unbelievable: a secret subterranean society. "The Colony" has existed unchanged for a century, but it's no benign time capsule of a bygone era--because the Colony is ruled by a cultlike overclass, the Styx. Before long--before he can find his father--Will is their prisoner....
"This novella's hero, the psychoanalyst, is a comic figure compelled by patients, friends and circumstances to think about profound psychological, philosophical and theological issues "after the catastrophe", an undefined moment in recent time that he believes has irreversibly changed the moral course of western culture." --Cover.
Taking it down a whole 'nother level, Will and Chester journey to the deadly center of the earth in FREEFALL. By the authors of the NYT Bestseller TUNNELS--soon to be a major motion picture!DEEPER ended with Will and Chester head over heels in FREEFALL-- tumbling through the subterranean Pore with the evil Rebecca twins in hot pursuit, toting phials of the toxic Dominion virus. When, where, will they ever land? Just when the drop seems infinite, the boys hit bottom, and find themselves in a realm of near-zero gravity atop a giant spongy fungus stuffed with flesh-eating spiders. But the true threat lies closer; dangerously close to Will's heart. And above ground, black-clad Styx are sprouting like poison mushrooms, dead-set on spreading their plague!
By the New York Times bestselling author of The Bone Clocks and Cloud Atlas | Longlisted for the Man Booker Prize Selected by Time as One of the Ten Best Books of the Year | A New York Times Notable Book | Named One of the Best Books of the Year by The Washington Post Book World, The Christian Science Monitor, Rocky Mountain News, and Kirkus Reviews | A Los Angeles Times Book Prize Finalist | Winner of the ALA Alex Award | Finalist for the Costa Novel Award From award-winning writer David Mitchell comes a sinewy, meditative novel of boyhood on the cusp of adulthood and the old on the cusp of the new. Black Swan Green tracks a single year in what is, for thirteen-year-old Jason Taylor, the sleepiest village in muddiest Worcestershire in a dying Cold War England, 1982. But the thirteen chapters, each a short story in its own right, create an exquisitely observed world that is anything but sleepy. A world of Kissingeresque realpolitik enacted in boys’ games on a frozen lake; of “nightcreeping” through the summer backyards of strangers; of the tabloid-fueled thrills of the Falklands War and its human toll; of the cruel, luscious Dawn Madden and her power-hungry boyfriend, Ross Wilcox; of a certain Madame Eva van Outryve de Crommelynck, an elderly bohemian emigré who is both more and less than she appears; of Jason’s search to replace his dead grandfather’s irreplaceable smashed watch before the crime is discovered; of first cigarettes, first kisses, first Duran Duran LPs, and first deaths; of Margaret Thatcher’s recession; of Gypsies camping in the woods and the hysteria they inspire; and, even closer to home, of a slow-motion divorce in four seasons. Pointed, funny, profound, left-field, elegiac, and painted with the stuff of life, Black Swan Green is David Mitchell’s subtlest and most effective achievement to date. Praise for Black Swan Green “[David Mitchell has created] one of the most endearing, smart, and funny young narrators ever to rise up from the pages of a novel. . . . The always fresh and brilliant writing will carry readers back to their own childhoods. . . . This enchanting novel makes us remember exactly what it was like.”—The Boston Globe “[David Mitchell is a] prodigiously daring and imaginative young writer. . . . As in the works of Thomas Pynchon and Herman Melville, one feels the roof of the narrative lifted off and oneself in thrall.”—Time
The harrowing story of five men who were sent into a dark, airless, miles-long tunnel, hundreds of feet below the ocean, to do a nearly impossible job—with deadly results A quarter-century ago, Boston had the dirtiest harbor in America. The city had been dumping sewage into it for generations, coating the seafloor with a layer of “black mayonnaise.” Fisheries collapsed, wildlife fled, and locals referred to floating tampon applicators as “beach whistles.” In the 1990s, work began on a state-of-the-art treatment plant and a 10-mile-long tunnel—its endpoint stretching farther from civilization than the earth’s deepest ocean trench—to carry waste out of the harbor. With this impressive feat of engineering, Boston was poised to show the country how to rebound from environmental ruin. But when bad decisions and clashing corporations endangered the project, a team of commercial divers was sent on a perilous mission to rescue the stymied cleanup effort. Five divers went in; not all of them came out alive. Drawing on hundreds of interviews and thousands of documents collected over five years of reporting, award-winning writer Neil Swidey takes us deep into the lives of the divers, engineers, politicians, lawyers, and investigators involved in the tragedy and its aftermath, creating a taut, action-packed narrative. The climax comes just after the hard-partying DJ Gillis and his friend Billy Juse trade assignments as they head into the tunnel, sentencing one of them to death. An intimate portrait of the wreckage left in the wake of lives lost, the book—which Dennis Lehane calls "extraordinary" and compares with The Perfect Storm—is also a morality tale. What is the true cost of these large-scale construction projects, as designers and builders, emboldened by new technology and pressured to address a growing population’s rapacious needs, push the limits of the possible? This is a story about human risk—how it is calculated, discounted, and transferred—and the institutional failures that can lead to catastrophe. Suspenseful yet humane, Trapped Under the Sea reminds us that behind every bridge, tower, and tunnel—behind the infrastructure that makes modern life possible—lies unsung bravery and extraordinary sacrifice.
When Jake Lukin, eighteen, reveals his psychic ability, he's forced to become a government asset in order to keep his mother and sister safe, but Rachel, the girl he likes, tries to help him live his own life instead of tunneling through others.
Thirtysomething Cara Foster is, one might say, eco-anxious—perhaps even eco-neurotic. She eats out of dumpsters (not because she wants to but because it’s the right thing to do), does laundry as seldom as possible, takes navy showers every couple of days, and is reevaluating her boyfriend for killing a spider instead of saving a life. Cara has never met her six (soon to be seven) nephews and nieces because she doesn’t fly domestic (unless it’s an emergency) or international (ever). She longs for a carbon footprint so light you’d hardly know she exists. Then, during a mimosa-soaked Sunday brunch, she meets her boyfriend’s alluring mother, Millie, and Cara finds herself mesmerized. Millie represents everything Cara’s against: She eats meat, has cowhide rugs, drives a car the size of a small yacht, and blithely travels the world by boat, plane, and train—without any guilt whatsoever. In fact, Cara soon admits this may be why she finds herself so drawn to Millie. As they begin spending time together, getting pedicures and drinking sixteen-olive martinis, Cara becomes hooked on Millie and this new freedom from the harsh realities of life in the twenty-first century. Yet before long, Cara risks losing everything to be close to the mundane extravagance of Millie’s world—her career, her best friend, and her identity all hang in the balance as she struggles to disentangle from this intoxicating muse. Irreverent, witty, and provocative, My Days of Dark Green Euphoria is a satirical novel of how a life on the edge of eco-anxiety can spiral wildly out of control, as well as how promising and inspiring a commitment to saving our planet can be.
A NEW YORK TIMES EDITORS' CHOICE A FINALIST FOR THE NATIONAL JEWISH BOOK AWARD From the award-winning, internationally acclaimed Israeli author, a suspenseful and poignant story of a family coping with the sudden mental decline of their beloved husband and father--an engineer who they discover is involved in an ominous secret military project Until recently, Zvi Luria was a healthy man in his seventies, an engineer living in Tel Aviv with his wife, Dina, visiting with their two children whenever possible. Now he is showing signs of early dementia, and his work on the tunnels of the Trans-Israel Highway is no longer possible. To keep his mind sharp, Zvi decides to take a job as the unpaid assistant to Asael Maimoni, a young engineer involved in a secret military project: a road to be built inside the massive Ramon Crater in the northern Negev Desert. The challenge of the road, however, is compounded by strange circumstances. Living secretly on the proposed route, amid ancient Nabatean ruins, is a Palestinian family under the protection of an enigmatic archaeological preservationist. Zvi rises to the occasion, proposing a tunnel that would not dislodge the family. But when his wife falls sick, circumstances begin to spiral . . . The Tunnel--wry, wistful, and a tour de force of vital social commentary--is Yehoshua at his finest.