Urban Exploration

From the creators of the wildly popular99% Invisiblepodcast, comes a guidebook to the unnoticed yet essential elements of our cities. Narrated by Roman Mars, with a bonus Q&A and a Full Episode of 99% Invisible. Have you ever wondered what those bright, squiggly graffiti marks on the sidewalk...

In the last installment of The Knight before Christmas a bomb is dropped and it causes a rift between Exotic and Knight. Terrah thinks she has won, but soon finds that scheming was in vain. After being dropped from Knight Records and sued she goes on a rampage to ruin Knight. She holds a secret that she thoughts no one knows until Knight’s lawyer digs deep to find out all about Terrah. Exotic goes to great lengths to get Knight to understand why she did what she did. In the midst of her trying to tell him she has her own secret that may change things for the both of them. Just when they ...

Some buildings are not just empty. They are filled with the echoes of the past. This gripping work of narrative nonfiction unlocks the gates to the world's most infamous institutions, from the sprawling grounds of Waverly Hills to the brutalist fortress of Volterra in Italy. Go beyond the legends and walk the decaying corridors where the forgotten were left to suffer. This is not just a collection of ghost stories; it is a profound and moving exploration of the real human tragedies that transpired within these walls. Through meticulous research, this book uncovers the harrowing history of ...

What if your next great adventure didn’t require a passport — just a fresh pair of eyes? Micro-Adventures by Zeamie Emanuel is an inspiring guide that shows you how to experience the thrill of travel right in your own city. With a blend of practical tips and creative prompts, this book invites you to uncover hidden gems, explore cultural treasures, and reconnect with a sense of wonder — no flights or long vacations needed. Whether you're wandering side streets, discovering secret rooftop gardens, or chasing murals across town, you'll learn how to turn everyday life into an ongoing ...

K.T. Tomb introduces three new heroines: bounty hunters Roberta, Riley, and Ricki Vaughan. All sisters. And all tough as nails. When a new client hires the streetwise Vaughan sisters to find and recover a stolen diamond that’s worth millions, the recovery fee alone could save their struggling business. However, their new client refuses to call the police, so the sisters have to keep this case on the down low. And when the prime suspect turns up dead, things really start to heat up in the Deep South. When an unexpected event threatens more than the recovery of the one-of-a-kind gem, all ...

Some places are abandoned for a reason. For fifteen years, maintenance man Daniel Rourke has kept the dying Briarwood Mall from falling apart. Now, just five days before the wrecking ball swings, his estranged teenage daughter breaks in to film a viral video. Daniel unlocks the doors to get her out, but what they find waiting in the dark, silent concourse is a nightmare. Bred in the dark and fed by toxic runoff, a massive colony of mutated, highly organized spiders has claimed the mall's substructure. They don't just hunt—they strategize, build traps, and herd their prey. Cut off from the...

Discover a world beyond the ordinary with Hidden Gems, your ultimate guide to the most enchanting and overlooked destinations across the globe. This captivating eBook invites you on a journey to explore the world’s forgotten corners, dotted with untold stories and enigmatic beauty. Begin your adventure by delving into the allure of abandoned places, from forgotten cities steeped in history to the ghost towns of the Wild West. Urban exploration reveals hidden facets of cities once bustling with life, now abandoned to time. The book then whisks you away to enigmatic island escapes, where ...

Liminal Spaces: Thresholds, Crossings, and Places In Between A Literary Exploration of Architecture, Folklore, and the Psychology of In-Between Places There are places where the world quietly shifts: rooms left waiting, stairwells thick with shadow, gardens overtaken by wildness, and forgotten doorways sealed by time. These are thresholds where certainty falters and possibility stirs; where we pause between departure and arrival, memory and forgetting, safety and the unknown. Liminal Spaces explores the architecture of transition through five richly illustrated chapters examining attics and...

Cal Rainer is desperate. Suspended from his job as a home inspector and drowning in debt, he accepts an off-the-books cash gig to evaluate the decaying, condemned Greystone Apartments. It is supposed to be a quick, easy payday. Just get in, check the foundation, and get out. But the Greystone isn’t empty. Deep in the subterranean darkness beneath the building, something has been hunting. Something ancient, massive, and fiercely protective of its growing nest. As Cal crawls deeper into the tight, claustrophobic maze of dirt and rotting wood, his exit is abruptly blocked. Armed with only a ...

Most books about Barcelona tell you where to find the best view of the Sagrada Família. This one gives you the story behind what you’re seeing. Backstory Atlas Barcelona: 10 Reasons We Can’t Stop Visiting The Mediterranean Rebel – A Guide to Its Travel History is a short, curated read that makes travel richer. It explores how a Roman trading port became one of Europe’s most magnetic destination cities — and why Barcelona still feels so shaped by civic pride, visual boldness, resistance, and reinvention. This is not a guidebook or a long, heavy history lesson. It is a short, ...

91 year-old Alice Hoffman died alone in her top floor flat. Social services say she slipped through the cracks in a failing system. But detectives Arthur Bryant & John May of the Peculiar Crimes Unit have their suspicions. Mrs Hoffman was not as innocent as she appeared. A former government...

Most books about Madrid tell you where to queue for the Prado. This one gives you the story behind what you’re seeing. Backstory Atlas Madrid: 10 Reasons We Can’t Stop Visiting The Deliberate City – A Guide to Its Travel History is a short, curated read that makes travel richer. It explores how a city with no great river, no natural harbor, and no obvious claim to greatness became one of Europe’s most important capitals — and why Madrid still feels so shaped by power, ambition, resilience, and reinvention. This is not a guidebook or a long, heavy history lesson. It is a short, ...

Liminal Spaces: The Empty Rooms, Hallways, and Places That Haunt the Internet explores why certain ordinary places feel eerie, dreamlike, nostalgic, and deeply wrong. This nonfiction book examines the empty school hallways, dead malls, hotel corridors, indoor pools, offices, stairwells, basements, parking garages, and waiting rooms that seem haunted not by ghosts, but by absence. Blending observation, internet culture, environmental psychology, and uncanny memory, it explains why these spaces feel so disturbing, why people cannot stop sharing their images online, and why the internet became...

Laura and Tyler are best friends who live together, angrily philosophising and leading each other astray in the pubs and flats of Manchester. But things are set to change. Laura is engaged to teetotal Jim, the wedding is just months away, and Tyler becomes hell-bent on sabotaging her friend's...

As the nation's oldest serving detectives, we know more about London than almost anyone. After all, we've been walking its streets and impulsively arresting its citizens for decades. Who better to take you through its less savoury side? We'll be chatting about odd buildings, odder characters...

A chilling novel about our modern world, from the author of Empire of the Sun and Crash. An architect is driving home from his London offices when a blow-out sends his speeding Jaguar hurtling out of control. Smashing through a temporary barrier he finds himself, dazed and disorientated, on a traffic island below three converging motorways. But when he tries to climb the embankment or flag-down a passing car for help it proves impossible - and he finds himself marooned on the concrete island.

WINNER OF THE MILES FRANKLIN AWARD SHORTLISTED FOR THE AGE BOOK OF THE YEAR Perfect for fans of Haruki Murakami, Ghost Cities is a profound and highly imaginative novel that cleverly draws on Chinese history to explore the absurdity of modern life and work. Ghost Cities - inspired by the vacant...

The death of a child and what seems to be a murderous puppet make a perfect case for Bryant and May and the Peculiar Crimes Unit. As John May and his team interrogate the suspects, Arthur Bryant heads into the secret world of illusions and stagecraft. As a second impossible death occurs, the...

Behind the gleaming façade of a respectable Parisian apartment building, a world of greed, lust, and betrayal festers in the shadows. Octave Mouret arrives in Paris with five thousand francs, an eye for seduction, and a ruthless ambition to claw his way into the bourgeoisie. The elegant building on Rue de Choiseul seems like paradise—heated staircases, mahogany doors, families of impeccable reputation. But behind every polished surface, Octave discovers a cesspool of hypocrisy: adulterous wives, scheming servants, merchants hawking their daughters like merchandise, and marriages built on...

Most books about Athens tell you where to get the best view of the Acropolis. This one gives you the story behind what you’re seeing. Backstory Atlas Athens: 10 Reasons We Can’t Stop Visiting The Ancient Argument – A Guide to Its Travel History is a short, curated read that makes travel richer. It explores how a city with no great river, no easy geography, and no obvious path to global importance became one of the most influential destinations in human history. This is not a guidebook or a long, heavy history lesson. It is a short, curated read for travelers who want to know the story...