Wretched Ruins

The topics of the Scary Places series may seem familiar—castles, cemeteries, haunted houses—but the format elicits a surprisingly expansive reach. Each book is divided into 11 two-page spreads, and while this doesn’t allow for a lot of depth, it does inspire the authors to cycle through tons of subjects—and the lesser-known ones are fascinating. Dark Labyrinths makes a case that the mostly underground mazes of humankind were, for the most part, designed for safety purposes. From the underground city of Derinkuyu, Turkey (which could have housed as many as 100,000); to the salt-mine cathedral in Wieliczka, Poland; to the booby-trapped tunnels used in the Vietnam War, this is a compendium of creepy claustrophobia that might even inspire a few family sojourns. Wretched Ruins has a number of the usual suspects (Machu Picchu, Stonehenge, Easter Island) and occasionally stretches the meaning of the word ruins (are the desert drawings of Nazca, Peru, really ruins?). But what it does well is communicate the awe of discovery—readers will feel the thrill of being there at the explanation of the Mayan city of Tikal and the shock at seeing the tombs carved into the cliffs of Petra, Jordan. Ghostly legends are often granted asides, and the solid back matter includes a world map that shows the impressive global scope of each volume.