Ruby Falls

Ruby Falls by Gin Phillips, 336 pages

In 1928, a man got lost in the caves outside Chattanooga and found a gorgeous underground waterfall he named Ruby Falls after his wife. Within months, the falls had become a tourist attraction, though Ruby's friend Ada Smith found herself sneaking into the caves to explore beyond the official tour route. Soon, Ada got to know the caves better than almost anyone, which is why she was one of two people chosen to serve as a safety net for a psychic whose latest stunt is finding a hatpin in the caves by only reading the minds of the men chosen to hide it. While the stunt begins innocuously, it slowly unravels, as they pass the deadline to emerge from the caves and still haven't found the pin. Soon everyone is on each other's nerves, which reaches an apex when, after a brief rest, one of the men escorting the psychic is found dead. What was fun now becomes a race to escape the caves before the food, water, and light run out, and with a murderer in their midst.

I enjoyed reading this very claustrophobic book, as I love caves and all the spookiness that they bring. It was hard to tell if this was historical fiction, a mystery, or a thriller, as it certainly had bits and pieces of all three. But in the end, it doesn't really matter, as it was a fun read.

Underground

Underground: a human history of the worlds beneath our feet / Will Hunt, read by the author, 275 pgs.

Will Hunt discovered an abandoned tunnel near his house when he was a kid.  That grew into a lifelong fascination with what goes on underground.  In this book, he traverses the globe visiting mines, tunnels, caves, and sewers.  He talks with urban explorers and an Aboriginal family in the Australian outback.  I enjoyed everything he covered in the book. I recommend reading over listening, the book includes a treasure trove of pictures, maps and drawings.  I think the audio listener will miss out on important content. Quirky and cool, if you are curious about the mysteries below, you will enjoy this book.

Ultima Thule

Ultima Thule by Davis McCombs, 52 pages

In this slim volume, McCombs offers poems focusing on the cave country of Kentucky, where McCombs was, at the time these were written, a park ranger at Mammoth Cave National Park. The poems touch on the majesty, mystery, and history of this, the largest cave system in the world, offering up reflections and meditations on everything from the people who lived in and above the caves in the past to the forces of nature that created them and the creatures that live there today. I particularly enjoyed the first third of the book, which comprises poems told from the point of view of Stephen Bishop, a slave who discovered several of Mammoth Cave's passages and led tours through them in the 1800s. I'm not usually a fan of poetry, but I very much enjoyed this evocative collection.