The Secret Life of Hidden Places: Concealed Rooms, Clandestine Passageways, and the Curious Minds That Made Them

by Stefan Bachmann, April Genevieve Tucholke, James Langton (Narrator)

A spellbinding tour, filled with stories, of some of the world’s most fascinating architectural mysteries.

This wondrous guide for the curious and the intrepid takes listeners on a lyrically written tour of eighteen of the world’s most captivating architectural mysteries. Delve into both the secretive places themselves and the eccentric and obsessive minds that created them. Visit a chamber of skulls high in the Swiss Alps, a Japanese temple full of traps, a Parisian apartment locked and untouched since World War II, a Prohibition-era speakeasy in Washington, DC, and a spooky “initiation” well in Portugal built by a secret society. How far down can you climb before losing your nerve?

Genres: Nonfiction, History, Travel, Architecture, Art, Historical, Audiobook

Audible Audio

First published February 13, 2024

About the author

Stefan Bachmann is a bestselling author of books and short stories. He was born in the United States and spent most of his childhood in Switzerland, where he graduated from the Zürich University of Arts with degrees in music composition and theory. His debut, The Peculiar, was published to international acclaim when he was nineteen years old. His work has gone on to be named a Publishers Weekly’s best book of the year, a VOYA Best Science Fiction & Fantasy of the Year, a New York Times Editor’s Choice, and a Dorothy Canfield Fisher Award finalist, among others. In 2017, he was chosen for the Aarhus 39, a selection of the best young writers in Europe, presented at the International Hay Festival in Denmark. He has written for radio, film, opera, magazines and newspapers, and his books have been published in over fifteen countries.

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Reviews

[Greekchoir · Rating 2 out of 5]

The spiritual equivalent of a History Channel special including the dramatized segments

[Bill Hsu · Rating 1 out of 5]

I should have been warned by the Reader Digest-y title, but I have a soft spot for the topic. This turned out to be something like a low-rent Atlas Obscura. While the Atlas website is light on the (usually serviceable) text, with emphasis on the photos, Secret Life can go close to four pages without any visual aid. The authors are easily sidetracked by gossip and tangential backstories, with significant real estate devoted to prose like this:

It's a beautiful thought, that the things of imagination and childhood are more real and appealing than any of the approximations we manage to build as adults. For these Dutch women, paradise was not to be found in the world around them. It was one step down, one step smaller, quiet and hidden away, a step closer to the light.

It's been a while since I've been so choked with orientalism:

You watch the lady from around a half-closed screen, the cool paper brushing your cheek. Slowly, delicately, she makes her way across the courtyard toward her husband. Her wooden sandals tap against the stone, echoing among the castle roofs. In the maples and the ginkgo trees the birds are silent.

And later:

Far from the neon signs of Tokyo and the graceful temples of Kyoto lies the city of Kanazawa, curled against the western coast of Japan like a small gray dragon.

Every night when I go to bed, I also curl up like a small gray dragon.

[Aja Hannah · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book is laid out beautifully from the graphics to the pictures to the anecdotes. However, it severely lacked appropriate coverage of diversity. Yes, it does have a few token places like a shrine in Japan, but many of these weren't secret in the same way. Egypt's tombs for King Tut, for example, is very well-known and the whole passage was white-washed that spoke to colonialism. The rest of the Secret Places were in Europe or white-owned places in America.

If another a revision/another edition is made, I hope it is just a beautiful and more inclusive.

[Lorraine · Rating 4 out of 5]

Stefan Bachmann & April Genevieve Tucholke’s The Secret Life of Hidden Places: Concealed Rooms, Clandestine Passageways, and the Curious Minds That Made Them is a fun book. At least it was for this reader as I always enjoy going ‘down the rabbit hole’. “The mention of secrets, specifically secret rooms, hidden staircases, and sealed chambers, has the whiff of the lurid to it, of pulp mystery novels, Scooby-Doo, Indiana Jones and gothic novels.” Discussed are a sunken manor in England, hidden panels in Marie-Antoinette and Louis XVI’s bedrooms in Versailles that lead to secret rooms and staircases, labyrinths, the Winchester mystery house, all kinds of secret societies, and many more secret or hidden places. The authors state that one needs to dig and find things. Scavenger hunts are named for both children and adults, and finally Howard Carter locating King Tutankhamen’s tomb with its treasures intact. Photographs provide a view of some of places described. My curiosity got me involved in this book. What will your reason be? 4 stars.

[Elentarri · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a fascinating, if random, collection of hidden staircases, secret door and rooms, forgotten tunnels, sealed chambers and other architectural oddities found in palaces, churches, tombs, monuments and cities all over the world, but with an emphasis on European and American sites. The authors also spend some page space writing about the people that found the need for such secret places, why those spaces were built, and those that discovered or re-discovered them. Some of these "secrets" I'd heard about (e.g. the Amber Room, the Parisian catacombs, various labyrinths, and the shafts in the Great Pyramid), but the majority were new to me. I found the tale of the book thief of Mont Sainte-Odile, the warren of tunnels under Mexico City, the Japanese temple that is one giant booby-trap, the sunken manor in England, the Dutch doll-houses, various secret alchemical laboratories, the Winchester mystery house, and various crypts and tombs, like the excavation of St. Peter's tomb under the Vatican City. The writing style is approachable, if breezy, but then again, whole books can be written on each example provided in this book. An entertaining diversion.

[Deb · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book was so interesting. I loved it. So many fascinating things to learn about. I liked how the author wrote it in such a fun and approachable way.
I listened to the audiobook and the narrator did a phenomenal job.

I recommend it. 5 ⭐️

[Jackie · Rating 4 out of 5]

ARC provided by the publisher via Netgalley

This book is everything it promises: a look at all types of secret rooms and passages and the history of how they came to be there. If the title grabbed your attention, go ahead and grab the book. The things I loved about the book were the wide variety of places highlighted and the way they were grouped together by type. For example, there's a chapter on speakeasies and hidden bars, a chapter on labyrinths and mazes, a chapter on secrets hidden in dollhouses, etc. The book covers locations around the world, though admittedly American and European places are the majority. My only qualm with the book is that I wish there had been some deeper analysis and insights, but that wasn't really what this book was doing. In that vein, I really would have liked a final word from the author tying everything up.

[Grace · Rating 2 out of 5]

Interesting concept, but the execution felt a little all over the place to me. There wasn't a ton of diversity of locales, and it just felt a little messy overall.

[Jodi · Rating 4 out of 5]

Viel habe ich von diesem Buch eigentlich nicht erwartet. Aber schlussendlich hat es mich wirklich begeistert.

Wir begeben uns auf die Suche nach verlassenen, vergessenen und versteckten Orten überall auf der Welt (auch wenn der Fokus doch stark auf Europa zu liegen scheint). Hier entdecken versteckte Türen, tiefe Brunnenschachte, machen eine Exkursion zu Geheimbünden, begegnen Marie Antoinette und vieles abenteuerliche mehr.

Ich wusste nie, was auf der nächsten Seite auf mich warten würde. Skelette? Katakomben? Eine Reise in den Urwald? Oder die Geschichte eines bibliophilen Diebes? Es gibt hier viel zu entdecken und es hat riesigen Spass gemacht, mehr über all die seltsamen Orte, Häuser, Gruben etc. auf dieser Welt zu erfahren.

Ausserdem empfehle ich, Google in der Nähe zu behalten. Bei mir war es auf jeden Fall so, dass ich ständig irgendwelche Sachen nachgeschlagen habe, um mir Bilder und Videos davon anzusehen. Dieses Buch hat mich also wirklich gepackt!

[Elaine · Rating 4 out of 5]

Thank you to NetGalley for an ARC of The Secret Life of Hidden Places.

When I saw the premise, I knew I had to read this!

If you like to read about the odd and wonderful, spooky and strange, sad and forgotten places, this is the book for you!

This was definitely the ideal book for me!

I love reading about the world's mysteries artifacts, buildings, and structures and this book fit the bill!

Packed with facts and great photos, the authors provides historical context of these mysterious and strange places, some I've heard of like the Initiation Well which I saw when I was in Lisbon last month.

It's actually not as spooky as you may think, but it's a must-see.

I really enjoyed the section on the Japanese temples and how well they were constructed and built with devious and elaborate traps. Fascinating!

All the stories are fascinating and the authors did a great job in researching the histories and backgrounds of each architectural mystery.

I look forward to reading the authors' next book!

[Debra Gaynor · Rating 5 out of 5]

The Secret Life of Hidden Places: Concealed Rooms, Clandestine Passageways, and the Curious Minds That Made Them
Stefan Bachmann, April Gene
Many buildings have secrets. There are 18 tales in this book. This book shares the secrets of each building and discuss the se creator The rooms are fascinating.
Thank you NetGalley for the review copy.

[Dodi · Rating 3 out of 5]

The Secret Life of Hidden Places describes unusual architecture around the world. I thought the writing was stilted; maybe it was meant to lend mystery to the text, but I found it annoying. Parts of this book were interesting. I enjoyed the dollhouse chapter, although I didn't see how it fit with the subject of the book. I think I would've enjoyed a more comprehensive look at some of the sites and less repetition.

[RaspberryRoses · Rating 3 out of 5]

very fun to read moment to moment, and it has a killer premise. but it is deeply flawed.

1) it feels like it could have used a lot more pictures and specificity in what pictures were selected. it feels like they didnt bother to show off most of the interesting stuff.

2) it. sure does have an orientalism problem

3) building off that last thing like... the last one felt tantalizingly close to having a conclusion which wrapped the whole book together, building off the idea of people raiding egyptian tombs to loot them and remove their cultural artifacts, and the idea of oh what do we owe a secret room? do we owe it to keep them safe? etc etc. but then its like welllll let's not interrogate that <3

[Brenda · Rating 5 out of 5]

The Secret Life of Hidden Places by Stefan Bachmann and April Genevieve Tucholke is an astonishing book to experience for those of us with insatiable curiosity about what is around the next bend or down the rickety steps or behind the locked door. As a rabid traveler, I am fortunate to have been to several of the places mentioned but the more we learn, the more we realize we don't know. The thrilling chapters kept on coming, dazzling and surprising in the best way possible.

Of the hidden places mentioned, my favourites include catacombs in Paris, an ossuary in the Czech Republic, the comparatively recent breathtaking discovery by a man beneath his home in Turkey, lesser-known Russian labyrinths (I once got lost in a hedge maze), a locked untouched apartment in Paris full of treasures, American Sarah Winchester's mysterious higgledy-piggledy house, the multitudinous secrets at Versailles and the creative world beneath the manor of a shy man whose desire was to avoid people. But the one which tickled me most was the world of dollhouses, one in particular with its tiny hidden treasures handcrafted using precious objects from all over the world.

Not only is the photography stunning and enticing but the authors have a wonderful witty conversational writing style which drew me in under a nanosecond. My brain feels smarter!

If you are remotely intrigued by hidden places, whether you travel or not, this book is for you. It is the epitome of perfection on a page. My hope is the authors have thousands (!) of future ideas to highlight as this wonderful world is absolutely jam packed with them.

My sincere thank you to Workman Publishing Company and NetGalley for providing me with a digital copy of this phenomenal book!

[James · Rating 3 out of 5]

A collection of strange places, both historical and current. The stories are interesting and the photos are well done. A decent read.

[Sandy · Rating 4 out of 5]

RTC

[Alexis Reimers · Rating 5 out of 5]

it was a very fun read!

[Jeryl · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is full of true histories of secret rooms, underground mansions, abandoned apartments, and more. They include stories of places that are familiar to many people like the Winchester Mystery House and King Tut's tomb as well as places that are not so well known like a cupboard in a museum that holds objects considered too scandalous for display and a hidden room in an Abbey that allowed a book thief access to steal books. Each chapter consists of a main story along with several other related tales. There are plenty of pictures throughout the book as well. Anyone who enjoys historical mysteries should really enjoy this thrilling and fascinating tome.

[Sarah Overvaag · Rating 5 out of 5]

No matter what type of secrets you're looking for, you're going to find them in this book. There are secrets laced with beauty and secrets that veer towards dark and spooky. I was familiar with some of the locations in the book -- each chapter featured one, and then a few similar ones -- but I was not aware of all of them. I feel the need to travel the world to see each secret and perhaps to discover new ones.

[Michelle Aurelia · Rating 5 out of 5]

I find books with lots of pictures can, at times, be very poorly written but this was fun and I enjoyed learning about these random places. Didn’t care much for the You bit as prologue to each chapter. That was a weird stylistic choice.

[Annarella · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is one of those book that can only defined as intriguing as it broght me back to when I was reading stories featuring lots of secrets passages and I was living in an house full of ancient furniture with a lot of hiding places.
Well written and researched, fascinating,f ull of illustrations.
Highly recommended.
Many thanks to the publisher for this ARC, all opinions are mine

[Nic · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is so dreamy! Not only does it tell you "Here's a secret place", but it tells you the history and people and reason about that place (as much as is possible)! So you're not left frustrated with curiosity. You are, however, left with the frustration that you cannot immediately teleport yourself to each and every location.

[mads · Rating 5 out of 5]

this was fascinating!

[Cat. · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fun, lots of good illustrations, and some twisty, unexpected bits. I'll have to look for more like this.

[Stephanie · Rating 5 out of 5]

Interesting book!

[Annika M Baldwin · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fell headfirst into this book.

[Dan · Rating 4 out of 5]

My thanks to both NetGalley and the publisher Workman Publishing Company for an advanced copy of this book on the hidden places that exist in buildings, the secrets that they contain, and the stories that surround them.

I am not a big social media user, but for some reason I am fascinated by people who post things about going into abandoned buildings and what they find there. Huge hallways, clean and lit in derelict buildings, tanks of rotting barrels under churches, entire abandoned neighborhoods in the midwest. To me, these reels are like a good Hitchcock film; I peak around the corners with the explorers, jump when something unexpected happens, and wonder at why these hidden areas were built. And what happened there. Human nature is to question and wonder, and be brave enough to look for answers. Probe for hidden doors, abandoned clubs and hideouts, even entire ballrooms buried beneath the Earth, never danced on or even seen by people at the time. The Secret Life of Hidden Places: Concealed Rooms, Clandestine Passageways, and the Curious Minds That Made Them by Stefan Bachmann and April Genevieve Tucholke is a travel guide to the clandestine, the ignored, the forgotten or memento mori to these places, build for a variety of reasons, but of fascination to everyone today.

The book features 18 chapters mostly on one location, a few chapters dealing with a variety of places that are off the beaten path. Sometimes hidden by walls, doors that can't be opened, or even in some cases rooms without doors. Each chapter has a little fictional tale in the beginning a kind of you are there moment for the reader to set the mood. The rest of the book is a historical look at these places, why it was built, if known, how it was found, and how they were used. Also included are some really splendid pictures, or art from the time, that really give readers a strong sense to what these places are or were like. The places vary in use in meaning. Some are deep tunnels, to hide certain people from others who might mean them harm. Some build off existing tunnels, with an architecture that is amazing to see, along with the patience to build them. A few like the Winchester house are built on the blood and greed of families, a house with many doors, passages leading nowhere, rooms with no entrances, to protect a family from vengeful ghosts, killed in the taming of the West. A bar from prohibition, an apartment from the Second World War. And the saddest being Welbeck Abbey, owned by a lonely man, shunned by the one he loved, who built a ballroom that was never danced on, and rooms for art he alone gazed at, under his manor home.

A travel guide for those who like the odd, a touch of the eerie, and some history behind it. Complete with pictures. The tale at the beginning really set the mood. The chapters are not long, but very complete, and really give a good sense to why these secret areas came about, how they were lost and found. There is a lot of research and work here and it shows. Each place sounds fascinating, a few sad, and others down right horror movie terrifying, and best explored from the comfort of one's home.

Recommended for people who love to read about strange and mysterious places, and for people who plan trips around seeing these kind of sites. In addition this would be a great reference book for people who make or enjoy escape rooms, writers of fantasy and horror, and game designers, especially role players for cool places to send their adventuring parties. A really fun book.

[Theediscerning · Rating 4 out of 5]

A book that might have been right up my street – but still provided a few hours entertainment, courtesy it dithering round the right neighbourhood, if nothing else. This is a well-presented look at many near-Fortean instances of things being hidden. We're talking big things, like communities of bones and grand estates, and smaller things, from the priest's hole to the privy.

The first chapter certainly was a delight, however familiar the topic. We start with the chap who, despite his mahoosive above-ground Nottinghamshire pile, built something almost as large underground – a ballroom, when he hated company, a billiard room fit for six full-sized tables, and so on. Was it his skin problems, his one love being unrequited, or just his hatred of pandering to his kin, that meant he was never to be looked at, and had tunnels such as one a third of a mile in length built under his lawns?

Next it's a French abbey, and the scholarly book thief who started taking their Latin prizes from the library shelves – and got to continue doing so when he became the only person aware of the secret antechamber linked to the book rooms. Other treasures are the Amber Room – truly secret and hidden in that nobody officially knows what happened to it during WW2, that there Winchester House, and a round-up of all those potential sites of alchemy the Germans might think of as a Laborkerner.

Unfortunately, some of the chapters are too close to just being a round-up, fixing on one place but finding the need to define the Freemasons, the Knights Templar and anyone else vaguely relevant. Some sites visited read more like tourist guides – Versailles, in particular – than a guide to what is really behind the world's best examples of those invisible jib doors.

Still, the photos are fine, the box-out-styled extra matter of further examples for each chapter are great, and the breadth of topics from secret museum collections to speakeasies still in operation at the start of covid lockdowns to satanic societies is all ripe for enjoyment. Less so is the constant way of introducing each chapter with a second person preamble, but a lot can be forgiven here. This is definitely a strong four stars, and a book whose rationing as well as purchase is definitely recommended.

[Tori Thompson · Rating 2 out of 5]

I was honestly pretty disappointed by this one, which I found to be distractable and distracting in its lack of structure. Each section was completely led away on meandering paths by loosely-connected tangents and digressions, to the point that I often forgot what actual location it was meant to be discussing--and yet these digressions never felt particularly well researched or informed enough to justify their taking up such a large percentage of the text, and god, would it have killed anyone to provide a citation or two? I don't feel like I have a remotely better mental image or understanding of these places, their layouts, their history, nor their purposes now than I did before I read this; though from looking at a few other reviews (and trying to understand why they all seem to have had a much better experience than I did), I'm wondering just how much of that was lost by my listening to the audiobook. It seems the actual physical text provides a lot of pictures and graphics that must carry a substantial amount of weight here. I guess that isn't necessarily a bad thing, but I wish authors and publishers actually cared enough to find ways to equally represent that information across formats.

I will say, I was genuinely impressed by the depictions of a few historical, oft-maligned figures such as Marie Antoinette and Sarah Winchester as actual, multi-faceted human beings instead of the caricatures cultural imaginings have made them. I learned a few new anecdotes about Marie Antoinette I hadn't heard before, and this was the first time I ever saw someone draw a connection between Winchester's "stairs to nowhere" and the fact that an earthquake destroyed upper floors of the house that were ultimately never rebuilt. I'm really glad that the creators and/or users of these titular secret places were treated with such thoughtfulness and depth; but overall it just wasn't enough to elevate the convoluted format or lackluster execution of other subjects for me.

[J Kromrie · Rating 4 out of 5]

Thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for this eARC.

The Secret Life of Hidden Places is a fascinating exploration of some of the world's most mysterious and intriguing architectural wonders. From the Amber Room that vanished during World War II to the underground city of Derinkuyu in Turkey, the authors take us on a journey through history, art, and culture, revealing the secrets behind these hidden places and the curious minds that made them.

This book is divided into eighteen chapters, each focusing on a different location or theme. The authors combine lush photographs, lyrical prose, and engaging anecdotes to bring these places to life. They also provide historical and cultural context, as well as insights into the motivations and personalities of the people who created or discovered these places. Whether it is the obsession of a mad king, the ambition of a visionary artist, or the curiosity of a daring explorer, the book reveals the human stories behind these architectural marvels.

The Secret Life of Hidden Places is a book for anyone who loves adventure, mystery, and beauty. It is a book that will inspire you to look beyond the surface and discover the hidden wonders of our world.