The Desert Reader: A Literary Companion

by Gregory McNamee

First published in 1995 as The Sierra Club Desert Reader , this wide-ranging anthology is now published only by UNM Press. Represented in this global selection are poets from ancient China (translated by Ezra Pound), Egyptian inscriptions, the logs of Captain Cook, and the chilling fantasies of Edgar Allan Poe, as well as the lore of native peoples from around the world. Also included are writings from many genres by, among others, Herodotus, Marco Polo, Shelley, Twain, Saint-Exup�ry, T. E. Lawrence, Chatwin, and Borges. �An extraordinary and ambitious anthology. . . . In selection after selection, deserts serve to define the limits of humankind�the place where civilization ends and the real wild begins. Indeed three of the book�s most poignant sections�a Nazi solder�s account of his struggles for survival in the wastelands of Africa during World War II, Andrei Platonov�s short story about a disastrous forced relocation of Turkmeni tribespeople during the Stalin era, and Robert Scott�s final journal entries about Britain�s tragic 1911 Antarctic expedition�illustrate that not even the great empires can conquer the desert. . . . As this fine anthology makes clear, the desert will always have a place in human society, swirling through our imaginations like a fierce, fiery sirocco.�� Outside Magazine �A marvelous grab bag of short stories, folk tales, poems, songs and travelogues. . . . a joy to thumb through.�� Los Angeles Times

Paperback

Published February 17, 2003

About the author

Gregory McNamee is a writer, journalist, editor, photographer, and publisher. He is the author or title-page editor of thirty-five books and more than four thousand periodical publications, including articles, essays, reviews, interviews, editorials, poems, and short stories.

Reviews

[Nancy Lewis · Rating 3 out of 5]

A collection of the best writing that exists to date on deserts around the world. But all of these pieces say the same thing: It's hot! It's sandy! It's godforsaken! Why are we here??

[Cody · Rating 4 out of 5]

Beautiful collection of prose, stories, and nonfiction accounts about all the deserts. The excerpts are pretty small so they read pretty quick, covering the Arabian desert, Antarctica, North American deserts, South American deserts, and Australia.

[Regena · Rating 2 out of 5]

These excerpts, for the most part, capture all the dry, hot (or super cold), inhospitable geography of the places crossed, but very little of the romance or mystery or awe….