Underground

A Human History of the Worlds Beneath Our Feet

By: Will Hunt

Narrated by: Will Hunt

“[A] winningly obsessive history of our relationship with underground places” (The Guardian), from sacred caves and derelict subway stations to nuclear bunkers and ancient underground cities—an exploration of the history, science, architecture, and mythology of the worlds beneath our feet

NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY NPR

When Will Hunt was sixteen years old, he discovered an abandoned tunnel that ran beneath his house in Providence, Rhode Island. His first tunnel trips inspired a lifelong fascination with exploring underground worlds, from the derelict subway stations and sewers of New York City to sacred caves, catacombs, tombs, bunkers, and ancient underground cities in more than twenty countries around the world. Underground is both a personal exploration of Hunt’s obsession and a panoramic study of how we are all connected to the underground, how caves and other dark hollows have frightened and enchanted us through the ages.

In a narrative spanning continents and epochs, Hunt follows a cast of subterraneaphiles who have dedicated themselves to investigating underground worlds. He tracks the origins of life with a team of NASA microbiologists a mile beneath the Black Hills, camps out for three days with urban explorers in the catacombs and sewers of Paris, descends with an Aboriginal family into a 35,000-year-old mine in the Australian outback, and glimpses a sacred sculpture molded by Paleolithic artists in the depths of a cave in the Pyrenees.

Each adventure is woven with findings in mythology and anthropology, natural history and neuroscience, literature and philosophy. In elegant and graceful prose, Hunt cures us of our “surface chauvinism,” opening our eyes to the planet’s hidden dimension. He reveals how the subterranean landscape gave shape to our most basic beliefs and guided how we think about ourselves as humans. At bottom, Underground is a meditation on the allure of darkness, the power of mystery, and our eternal desire to connect with what we cannot see.

Praise for Underground

“A mesmerizingly fascinating tale . . . I could not stop reading this beautifully written book.”—Michael Finkel, author of The Stranger in the Woods

“Few books have blown my mind so totally, and so often. In Will Hunt’s nimble hands, excursion becomes inversion, and the darkness turns luminous. There are echoes of Sebald, Calvino, and Herzog in his elegant and enigmatic voice, but also real warmth and humor. . . . An intrepid—but far from fearless—journey, both theoretically and terrestrially.”—Robert Moor, New York Times bestselling author of On Trails

Wonderful!

Thought I was getting into a book about subways and bunkers, instead got a very spiritual journey into our ideas of the underworld!

Well worth the credit!

Hope to see more from this author!

Unexpected

This book is much more a spiritual reflection on underground life throughout history. Cover and marketing material suggests a more technical and modern perspective which I would have preferred. Also, I find that authors rarely are the best narrators of their work — and this reading is consistent with that view.

So Good That I Teared Up at the Last Line

This book satisfied my expectations and then went way beyond them. It starts with science and cool facts and then goes, well, deeper. I cannot recommend this book enough. The last sentence was so moving I noticed tears in my eyes.

Call of the Dark

Will Hunt lays out his personal journeys into both the physical underground (both manmade tunnels and natural caves) and it's spiritual significance to people around the world. He's engaging, and his passion for the subject shines through in his reading. There are a few points where he stumbles on pronunciation but those don't detract from the overall experience of Underground.

Best listened to in perfect darkness.

An exceptionally told story

About five minutes in, the author is talking about an underground tunnel he explored as a boy. He finds a pile of buckets deep in the tunnel. Okay, that's odd. One of hundreds of odd details throughout the book. The author/narrator is excellent at both tasks, tying in lots of interesting facts with a lot of interesting experiences. I was reminded of a similar audiobook, The 99% Invisible City.

Dreamy. In some way, this seems like a dream of being underground. I've now listened to it three times, it's a great work.