Blind Descent by James Tabor

A fascinating book recounting the exploration for the deepest cave in the world - a race for discovery between two world class explorers in caves in Mexico and the Republic of Georgia. The story is relatively recent (within the past ten years) but somehow failed to gain much media attention. The author compares the discovery of the deepest cave in the world as climbing Mt. Everest in reverse.

The conditions of this search were beyond belief. The teams would spend more than four weeks underground in utter darkness and being constantly wet. The book spends much of the time describing cave diving in which the cave would seemingly end at a massive lake. The explorers would then utilize scuba equipment to try to find a passage that extended the cave.

Despite adventurous story and incredible discovery, I felt like the book was poorly written. The author repeats metaphors and phrases over and over again, not to mention several typos that are present in the published editions. Still, it was an enjoyable read about a completely different world than I imagined underground.