Hollow Places An Unusual History Of Land And Legend

'The Tomb of the Mili Mongga lives up to its magnificent billing' DAILY TELEGRAPH - A fossil expedition becomes a thrilling search for a mythical beast deep in the Indonesian forest – and a fascinating look at how fossils, folklore, and biodiversity converge. A tale of exciting scientific discovery, The Tomb of the Mili Mongga tells the story of Samuel Turvey's expeditions to the island of Sumba in eastern Indonesia. While there, he discovers an entire recently extinct mammal fauna from the island's fossil record, revealing how islands support some of the world's most remarkable biodiversity, and why many of these unique endemic species are threatened with extinction or have already been lost. But as the story unfolds, an unexpected narrative emerges – Sumba's Indigenous communities tell of a mysterious wildman called the 'mili mongga', a giant yeti-like beast that supposedly lives in the island's remote forests. What is behind the stories of the mili mongga? Is there a link between this enigmatic entity and the fossils that Sam is looking for? And what did he discover when he finally found the tomb of a mili mongga? Combining evolution, anthropology, travel writing and cryptozoology, The Tomb of the Mili Mongga explores the relationship between biodiversity and culture, what reality means from different cultural perspectives, and how folklore, fossils and conservation can be linked together in surprising ways.

A TIMES BOOK OF THE YEAR ‘An absolute joy to read and an early contender for every list of History Books of the Year’ Sunday Telegraph ‘On nearly every page a random passage takes one’s breath away’ The Times Have you ever heard the march of legions on a lonely country road?

This book is a travel guide of sorts to New York's local legends and best kept secrets, filled with crazy characters, cursed roads, abandoned sites, and bizarre roadside attractions that the author feels reflect the shared modern folklore of our time.

How the United States underdeveloped Appalachia Appalachia—among the most storied and yet least understood regions in America—has long been associated with poverty and backwardness. But how did this image arise and what exactly does it mean? In Ramp Hollow, Steven Stoll launches an original investigation into the history of Appalachia and its place in U.S. history, with a special emphasis on how generations of its inhabitants lived, worked, survived, and depended on natural resources held in common. Ramp Hollow traces the rise of the Appalachian homestead and how its self-sufficiency resisted dependence on money and the industrial society arising elsewhere in the United States—until, beginning in the nineteenth century, extractive industries kicked off a “scramble for Appalachia” that left struggling homesteaders dispossessed of their land. As the men disappeared into coal mines and timber camps, and their families moved into shantytowns or deeper into the mountains, the commons of Appalachia were, in effect, enclosed, and the fate of the region was sealed. Ramp Hollow takes a provocative look at Appalachia, and the workings of dispossession around the world, by upending our notions about progress and development. Stoll ranges widely from literature to history to economics in order to expose a devastating process whose repercussions we still feel today.

The story of Troy speaks to all of us - the kidnapping of Helen, a queen celebrated for her beauty, sees the Greeks launch a thousand ships against the city of Troy, to which they will lay siege for ten whole years. It is a terrible war with casualties on all sides as well as strained relations between allies, whose consequences become tragedies. In Troy you will find heroism and hatred, love and loss, revenge and regret, desire and despair. It is these human passions, written bloodily in the sands of a distant shore, that still speak to us today.

A page-turning novel that is also an exploration of the great philosophical concepts of Western thought, Jostein Gaarder's Sophie's World has fired the imagination of readers all over the world, with more than twenty million copies in print. One day fourteen-year-old Sophie Amundsen comes home from school to find in her mailbox two notes, with one question on each: "Who are you?" and "Where does the world come from?" From that irresistible beginning, Sophie becomes obsessed with questions that take her far beyond what she knows of her Norwegian village. Through those letters, she enrolls in a kind of correspondence course, covering Socrates to Sartre, with a mysterious philosopher, while receiving letters addressed to another girl. Who is Hilde? And why does her mail keep turning up? To unravel this riddle, Sophie must use the philosophy she is learning—but the truth turns out to be far more complicated than she could have imagined.

Three siblings embark on an epic quest for a mythic grail in this first installment of Susan Cooper’s epic and award-winning The Dark Is Rising Sequence, now with a brand-new look! All through time, the two great forces of Light and Dark have battled for control of the world. Now, after centuries of balance, the Dark is summoning its terrifying forces to rise once more…and three children find themselves caught in the conflict. The Drew siblings—Simon, Jane, and Barney—are on a family holiday in Cornwall when they discover an ancient map in the attic of the house they are sharing with their Great Uncle Merry. They know immediately that the map is special but have no way of knowing how much. For the map leads to a grail: a vital weapon for the Light’s fight against evil. In taking on the quest to find the grail, the Drews will have to race against the sinister human beings who serve the dreadful power of the dark—an adventure that puts their own lives in grave peril.

At the end of a winter-long journey into manhood, Little Hawk returns to find his village decimated by a white man's plague and soon, despite a fresh start, Little Hawk dies violently but his spirit remains trapped, seeing how his world changes.

From the listless repose of the place, and the peculiar character of its inhabitants, who are descendants from the original Dutch settlers, this sequestered glen has long been known by name of Sleepy Hollow ... A drowsy, dreamy influence seems to hang over the land, and to pervade the very atmosphere.-- Washington Irving, "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow"