[BOOK REVIEW]
Oliver Smith (Hachette Australia: Mitchell Beazley) 2022, 224pp, RRP $45.00 (hardback); $19.99 (e-Book)
Travel writer Smith’s book is beautiful to behold, even if the locations it chronicles are sometimes desperately sad, often eerie, and occasionally quite dangerous.
With at times stark photographs and a description of how each place came to be abandoned (or not quite), this notably includes such memorable spots as: the unused Aldwych Station (London) and La Petite Ceinture (Paris); the Soviet coal-mining town Pyramiden in the Arctic Circle; Bulgaria’s bizarre Bozludzha Monument; Project Roese, a subterranean hideout for Hitler (a fair few Nazi buildings are featured herein); and Russia’s grimly lonely Aniva Lighthouse.
Some are quite recently abandoned (the rotting Hô Thuƴ Tién Waterpark), while others are abandoned for very good reason (the Montserrat Exclusion Zone and the Fukushima Red Zone), and still more are easy to see yet almost impossible to get to, such as Homebush Bay’s wrecks right in Sydney Harbour.
Abandon ship indeed.
Dave Bradley
This title is available through the Hachette Australia website. Click HERE to purchase your copy.
