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Title details for Ghost Town Living by Brent Underwood - Available

Ghost Town Living

Mining for Purpose and Chasing Dreams at the Edge of Death Valley

by Brent Underwood
ebook
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NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • A long-abandoned silver mine for sale sounded like an adventure too great to pass up, but it turned into much more—a calling, a community of millions, and hard-earned lessons about chasing impractical dreams.
“Inspiring and meditative—the story of man vs nature and man vs himself.”—Ryan Holiday, #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Obstacle is the Way
The siren song of Cerro Gordo, a desolate ghost town perched high above Death Valley, has seduced thousands since the 1800s, but few fell harder for it than Brent Underwood, who moved there in March of 2020, only to be immediately snowed in and trapped for weeks.
It had once been the largest silver mine in California. Over $500 million worth of ore was pulled from the miles of tunnels below the town. Butch Cassidy, Mark Twain, and other infamous characters of the American West were rumored to have stayed there. Newspapers reported a murder a week. But that was over 150 years ago.
Underwood bet his life savings—and his life—on this majestic, hardscrabble town that had broken its fair share of ambitious men and women. What followed were fires, floods, earthquakes, and perhaps strangest, fame. Ghost Town Living tells the story of a man against the elements, a forgotten historic place against the modern world, and a dream against all odds—one that has captured millions of followers around the world.
He came looking for a challenge different from the traditional 9-5 job but discovered something much more fulfilling—an undertaking that would call on all of himself and push him beyond what he knew he was capable of. In fact, to bring this abandoned town back to life, Brent had to learn a wealth of new self-sufficiency and problem-solving skills from many generous mentors.
Ghost Town Living is a thrilling read, but it’s also a call to action—to question our too-practical lives and instead seek adventure, build something original, redefine work, and embrace the unknown. It shows what it means to dedicate your life to something, to take a mighty swing at a crazy idea and, like the cardsharps who once haunted Cerro Gordo, go all in.

  • Creators

  • Publisher

  • Release date

    March 19, 2024

  • Formats

    • Kindle Book

    • OverDrive Read

      • ISBN: 9780593578452

    • EPUB ebook

      • ISBN: 9780593578452
      • File size: 10517 KB

  • Languages

    • English

  • Reviews

    • Booklist

      February 1, 2024
      Along with investors, entrepreneur Underwood bought an abandoned mining town in California's Inyo Mountains in 2018 and soon found himself not only immersed in reimagining and rebuilding it but also chasing views on social media about his new purchase. With 1.7 million followers on YouTube, plus more fans on Instagram and Tik Tok, where one video reached 24-plus million views, Underwood has made the story of Cerro Gordo as much about the town's history as a modern-day marketer's method of selling it. (Separately, Underwood co-owns Brass Check, a "creative advisory firm.") With Ghost Town Living (also his online handle), he documents his steep learning curve at Cerro Gordo, shares his appreciation for the beauty of the sunrise and the night stars, and draws on the inspiration of many others who sought answers to life's questions in the wild, from Seneca to Thoreau to Chris McCandless. Underwood's online fans will enjoy going beyond his videos and posts to learn more about their favorite ghost town, while others interested in the history of the West and ambitious reclamation projects will also be intrigued.

      COPYRIGHT(2024) Booklist, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

    • Kirkus

      February 1, 2024
      Life at 8,000 dusty feet, with a view of Death Valley. "I am the luckiest man in the world. I am also a prisoner of this place...with one of the most breathtaking views" in the U.S. So writes Underwood, who wandered into the old, long-abandoned mining town of Cerro Gordo, California, and for reasons even he can't quite explain sank his life savings into buying the place. Not for nothing is it called a ghost town. Most people who came there died before they reached 35, of all sorts of causes: alcoholism, mining accidents, gunfights, epidemics, dehydration, and so on. The author writes that buying the town still cost less than a two-bedroom house in Los Angeles, the city that Southern California's mines made, and calls the purchase "the best money I have ever spent." Remaking the town, he adds later, has not a little in common with trench warfare, and he took a lesson from the British army's custom of regularly moving soldiers off the line for a few days of rest--even though he found it difficult to tear himself away from the task of restoring some of the town's old buildings. And what a task that turned out to be: As he writes in exquisite detail--so vivid and vibrant that readers will think twice about following his lead--one of the great challenges was getting concrete and water up the switchback trail to Cerro Gordo, made just a little easier by the fact that locals at lower elevations became as invested in the project as was Underwood himself. In the end, he writes, rebuilding the town involved rebuilding himself: "Cerro Gordon takes you as you are, but then it changes you." It's not quite Thoreau, but it's still a pleasure to read Underwood's account of bringing history to life.

      COPYRIGHT(2024) Kirkus Reviews, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

Formats

  • Kindle Book
  • OverDrive Read
  • EPUB ebook

subjects

Languages

  • English

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