Last week at work my Dad handed me a book and said, "Here, you'll like this one." Since a good book is worth ten times its weight in coal out at the mine (there's lots of coal, not so many books there) I thanked him, till I looked at the cover. It was sort of a "new old-timey" picture of a woman with flowing red hair, and the book was called Rose. Since guys will sometimes leave a romance novel sitting around, I thought my Dad was just joking so I tried to hand it back to him but he said, "No, really- it's about coal mining." Turns out he was right- your basic mystery novel, but set against the backdrop of an underground coal mine in England in the 1880s. Makes me glad that I am an open pit miner, though.
Speaking of underground miners, did you know that more than 5000 Chinese coal miners were killed on the job in 2004?