Howdy!
So, these past few weeks I’ve been working on getting a new edition of The Green Unknown: Travels in the Khasi Hills, into shape. On this site you can already find a 13 chapter edit of the book (that’s the version published by now-defunct Westland Books India, plus 3 additional chapters). But, exclusively on Patreon, I’m going to be releasing another edit of the book with a full 20 chapters that will be available by July 29. If you’ve enjoyed what you’ve read of The Green Unknown so far, please consider giving that a look.
In case you’re wondering why there were so many chapters left out of the original edit, what happened was I had already written a mid-sized work on the Khasi Hills when the folks at Westland decided they wanted a much leaner, 40,000-word book. This meant I had to take out a whole bunch of material. What stayed in were mostly the chapters that gave the reader a sort of wide, general, overview of the Khasi Hills. What got cut were the chapters that focused in on the little details and small, often overlooked, eccentricities of southern Meghalaya, which are some of the things which have stuck with me the most over the years. Ultimately, I thought the 10-chapter, 40,000 word edit read fairly well, and I was glad that it sold quite a few copies, but there’s plenty of interesting stuff that had to be cut out.
The extra bits in the new Patreon edit cover everything from the genuine dangers of quicksand in limestone caves, to village madmen, to Khasi automotive geniuses, to corrupt Bangladeshi border guards, to forests of bioluminescent fungi.
Cheers
Patrick
Patrick Rogers 