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The Wild Dark: Finding the Night Sky in the Age of Light
At a time when most people on Earth live in regions of acute light pollution, Craig Childs takes us on a journey to rediscover the awesome power of night itself. A night sky is not an absence of light; it is the presence of the universe. In The Wild Dark, master storyteller Craig Childs embarks on a quest to bike from the blinding lights of the Las Vegas Strip to one of the darkest spots in North America. Childs is a fearless explorer of both the natural world and the human imagination, making him the perfect guide to help us rediscover the heavens and to ask: "What does it do to us to not see the night sky?" In a book that is at once an adventure story, a field guide, and a celebration of wonder, Childs invites us to look up and to look inward, eyes wide and sparkling with stars.
212 pages, Hardcover
Published May 27, 2025
41 people are currently reading
377 people want to read
About the author
Craig Childs
32 books411 followersCRAIG CHILDS is a commentator for NPR's Morning Edition, and his work has appeared in The New York Times, Los Angeles Times, Men's Journal, Outside, The Sun, and Orion. He has won numerous awards including the 2011 Ellen Meloy Desert Writers Award, 2008 Rowell Award for the Art of Adventure, the 2007 Sigurd Olson Nature Writing Award, and the 2003 Spirit of the West Award for his body of work.
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Displaying 1 - 23 of 23 reviews
February 25, 2025
As a lover of the Southwestern United States, especially the people, flora, fauna, and geology I was in for a marvelous treat. As Craig and his friend, Irvin, cycle away from the garish lights of Las Vegas towards the darkest bit of Nevada, they stop to not just look up and see more and more stars becoming visible, but admire petroglyphs, shy desert animals, help and be helped by strangers, and recount stories. My favorite one was Craig's reenactment of the Navajo story of Black God and trickster Coyote. They pass nearby that blot on the landscape "City" art installation by Heizer (my opinion) near the end; Craig kindly makes no disparaging comments. They see the Milky Way dancing like a unique species at the end of their journey. Light pollution is an easy fix, he believes. He has me convinced.
Craig chooses his words carefully, giving you vivid pictures of what he's seeing. He's a terrific writer.
If this taught me anything, it's to look up, look around, look down, slow down, take care of the land, and turn off that bloody light.
I was given an advanced copy by Torrey House.
Craig chooses his words carefully, giving you vivid pictures of what he's seeing. He's a terrific writer.
If this taught me anything, it's to look up, look around, look down, slow down, take care of the land, and turn off that bloody light.
I was given an advanced copy by Torrey House.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
June 20, 2025
I've been a Craig Child's fan for 20ish years now and his newest book (pre-ordered) brought a wave of nostalgia for his writing style. Effortlessly imaginative, lovely prose, adventure embarking, scientific explanations and history are all weaved together so beautifully.
Childs' writing is art. And like all good art it inspires and calls to action all good folks who think our connection to the night sky is worth protecting. Both for the physical benefits the dark brings to us but also for the intrinsic beauty that is part of our lineage since time immemorial. Truly, what DOES it mean to lose our connection to the larger universe via the night sky? And what lengths are we willing to go to preserve this sacred connection?
Childs' writing is art. And like all good art it inspires and calls to action all good folks who think our connection to the night sky is worth protecting. Both for the physical benefits the dark brings to us but also for the intrinsic beauty that is part of our lineage since time immemorial. Truly, what DOES it mean to lose our connection to the larger universe via the night sky? And what lengths are we willing to go to preserve this sacred connection?
November 3, 2025
Two men take a bicycle trip to find a place where they can see the night sky, starting from Las Vegas, completely light polluted, to the exact opposite, Bortle 9 to Bortle 1. The author discusses the various terrains and various flora and fauna on the way. Quite fascinating book.
March 14, 2025
When my twins were three years old, my husband and I took them car camping for the first time at off the Peak-to-Peak Highway between Nederland and Estes Park, CO. It had been a warm summer day, but by the hours just past midnight a chill had descended, as it does in the mountains. Our son woke up needing the bathroom. My husband unzipped the tent. Our son peered out warily after him. "Daddy," I heard him say from the warmth of my own sleeping bag, "is it going to snow?"
It took me a minute to realize that he wasn't talking about the temperature. He was talking about the profusion of stars. I wriggled myself to the tent entrance to join him and there they were: the constellation-blurring masses of them, the Milky Way like a river of light, all of them seeming indeed to be hovering above us like countless slowly falling snowflakes. We can't see that sky from our town. I'm not even sure I could see it from my hometown in Missouri in the 80s, when artificial light was less bright and less widespread outside of big cities.
Craig Childs' wonderful book explores this loss, and it explores what we gain when we go back to a truly dark sky. Opening with an anecdote--his own first memory of such a sky at an age when he wasn't much older than my little son--he then transports us to Las Vegas where the night is relentlessly, oppressively illuminated. He and a friend are preparing for a cross-country bike ride into the desert, the endpoint of which will be the darkest kind of sky we can see on earth. Each night of their journey, the lights of Vegas recede a touch. Along the way we learn about the Bortle scale: Bortle 9 is a Vegas-lit sky, Bortle 1 the firmament above the arid basin where their journey ends. I'm guessing the sky my family saw all those years ago was probably about Bortle 3; from up there you can still see Denver lighting up the eastern horizon.
Childs is a fabulous storyteller. He brings in memories of other dark skies he's seen (the Atacama in Chile being one), Native American legends about the role of the sky in creation, the science of how the loss of real dark affects our circadian rhythms, and much more. He also interviews fascinating people, including one advocate for dark-sky designation for her community whose own husband isn't convinced of the value of turning out the lights.
His descriptions deserve to be read aloud. Here's just one example: "I'm up to my neck in stars...a menagerie of mythic, astronomical structures and possibilities, not just the cold void of space. The sensation of seeing it with your own eyes is akin to plunging your body into cold water, a sweeping rearrangement of what you understood the world to be by daylight. Zest enters the blood and skin tingles."
There was a fad in self-help books a few years ago around actively seeking experiences of awe to put things into perspective. If you can't get to a truly dark sky yourself right now, this lovely book is the next best thing.
It took me a minute to realize that he wasn't talking about the temperature. He was talking about the profusion of stars. I wriggled myself to the tent entrance to join him and there they were: the constellation-blurring masses of them, the Milky Way like a river of light, all of them seeming indeed to be hovering above us like countless slowly falling snowflakes. We can't see that sky from our town. I'm not even sure I could see it from my hometown in Missouri in the 80s, when artificial light was less bright and less widespread outside of big cities.
Craig Childs' wonderful book explores this loss, and it explores what we gain when we go back to a truly dark sky. Opening with an anecdote--his own first memory of such a sky at an age when he wasn't much older than my little son--he then transports us to Las Vegas where the night is relentlessly, oppressively illuminated. He and a friend are preparing for a cross-country bike ride into the desert, the endpoint of which will be the darkest kind of sky we can see on earth. Each night of their journey, the lights of Vegas recede a touch. Along the way we learn about the Bortle scale: Bortle 9 is a Vegas-lit sky, Bortle 1 the firmament above the arid basin where their journey ends. I'm guessing the sky my family saw all those years ago was probably about Bortle 3; from up there you can still see Denver lighting up the eastern horizon.
Childs is a fabulous storyteller. He brings in memories of other dark skies he's seen (the Atacama in Chile being one), Native American legends about the role of the sky in creation, the science of how the loss of real dark affects our circadian rhythms, and much more. He also interviews fascinating people, including one advocate for dark-sky designation for her community whose own husband isn't convinced of the value of turning out the lights.
His descriptions deserve to be read aloud. Here's just one example: "I'm up to my neck in stars...a menagerie of mythic, astronomical structures and possibilities, not just the cold void of space. The sensation of seeing it with your own eyes is akin to plunging your body into cold water, a sweeping rearrangement of what you understood the world to be by daylight. Zest enters the blood and skin tingles."
There was a fad in self-help books a few years ago around actively seeking experiences of awe to put things into perspective. If you can't get to a truly dark sky yourself right now, this lovely book is the next best thing.
January 10, 2026
The Wild Dark: Finding the Night Sky in the Age of Light is a luminous work of nature writing that reminds us how much of our humanity has been dimmed by artificial light. Craig Childs turns the night sky into both a physical landscape and a spiritual one, showing how darkness is not emptiness, but a vast presence filled with stars, history, and meaning.
By cycling from the blinding neon of the Las Vegas Strip into some of the darkest remaining places in North America, Childs creates a powerful narrative arc: from sensory overload to cosmic stillness. Along the way, he blends adventure, astronomy, ecology, and cultural history, revealing how humans across time have navigated, dreamed, and told stories beneath the same sky that now disappears behind light pollution.
What makes this book extraordinary is the way Childs connects the scientific and the poetic. We learn how artificial light disrupts wildlife, erases the Milky Way, and alters human sleep and psychology but we also feel what it means to stand beneath a truly dark sky and experience awe. The night becomes a living entity, something to be respected rather than feared or conquered.
In an age where constant illumination mirrors constant distraction, The Wild Dark feels quietly radical. It urges us to slow down, to look up, and to remember that we are small in the best possible way. Craig Childs doesn’t just write about the stars he restores our relationship to them.
By cycling from the blinding neon of the Las Vegas Strip into some of the darkest remaining places in North America, Childs creates a powerful narrative arc: from sensory overload to cosmic stillness. Along the way, he blends adventure, astronomy, ecology, and cultural history, revealing how humans across time have navigated, dreamed, and told stories beneath the same sky that now disappears behind light pollution.
What makes this book extraordinary is the way Childs connects the scientific and the poetic. We learn how artificial light disrupts wildlife, erases the Milky Way, and alters human sleep and psychology but we also feel what it means to stand beneath a truly dark sky and experience awe. The night becomes a living entity, something to be respected rather than feared or conquered.
In an age where constant illumination mirrors constant distraction, The Wild Dark feels quietly radical. It urges us to slow down, to look up, and to remember that we are small in the best possible way. Craig Childs doesn’t just write about the stars he restores our relationship to them.
June 16, 2025
I'm a big fan of Craig Childs and will read everything he writes. Here he's exploring the experience of confronting dark night skies, and what is lost when the light of urban development brightens the dark so much we can't see our galaxy, and other galaxies. I liked it far more than his last book. There's the familiar sense of adventure here as Childs and his friend travel into the Nevada landscape away from Las Vegas in search of darkness. That first hand adventure account was what I liked most about his earlier works. There's not a sense of danger or risk in this one but certainly exploration and curiosity about the Nevada desert landscape.
And here, for almost the first time in any of Childs' books, is a kind of political awareness about the costs of development and urban growth. For some reason he seemed resistant to exercising any kind of critical social judgment in his previous writing. With this topic it's unavoidable though. The work is premised on the fact that we're losing the ability to see what our ancestors would have seen. It makes me want to see the Milky Way - from a remote place.
And here, for almost the first time in any of Childs' books, is a kind of political awareness about the costs of development and urban growth. For some reason he seemed resistant to exercising any kind of critical social judgment in his previous writing. With this topic it's unavoidable though. The work is premised on the fact that we're losing the ability to see what our ancestors would have seen. It makes me want to see the Milky Way - from a remote place.
July 19, 2025
It is so nice to see Craig Childs writing about the things he wants to. Seeing a thread and pulling on it while engaging with it experientially. The books for the big publishers always seemed a bit of a stretch. His audience might be smaller now with Torrey House Press but his strengths are allowed to shine. Thinking deeply about the wonders of the world while exploring.
Bike packing from Las Vegas to the areas with almost zero light pollution- seeing the shift night to night as the skies shift from hardly any stars to soooooo many stars. Also cool to see how his expedition was timed with the moon- we often time things to the sun and seasons, but less so about the moon unless you’re on tidal waters.
The wonders of the night sky! What could and should be!
Bike packing from Las Vegas to the areas with almost zero light pollution- seeing the shift night to night as the skies shift from hardly any stars to soooooo many stars. Also cool to see how his expedition was timed with the moon- we often time things to the sun and seasons, but less so about the moon unless you’re on tidal waters.
The wonders of the night sky! What could and should be!
October 17, 2025
The parts of this book that describe the levels of sky darkness and what we lose by losing the stars are very compelling and made me want to get to a really dark site and see the cosmos again. But the author is often too cute by half, like when he talks about flavoring their meals with dog treats or keeping an open mind about whe4ter he accepts the scientific view of star formation or the Native American tale of trickster Coyote randomly scattering them, from a bag. Also, much of the book is travelog, and reading about a bike trip isn't that interesting. It did convince me that I never want to go to Vegas, and if I do go, I never want to leave by biking across the desert to the4 North.
February 27, 2025
We are definitely not alone!
Childs and a companion take a bike trip from Las Vegas into the darkest Nevada desert, and his talent to tell an entertaining and informative story is on full display.
It reminds me of the dark skies of my childhood, and a dear uncle who could rattle off the different constellations after the milking was done and the yard light was shut off. Maybe all this light is making humans as disoriented as the other creatures we harm by our excess.
The solution is just a light switch away. A must read.
Childs and a companion take a bike trip from Las Vegas into the darkest Nevada desert, and his talent to tell an entertaining and informative story is on full display.
It reminds me of the dark skies of my childhood, and a dear uncle who could rattle off the different constellations after the milking was done and the yard light was shut off. Maybe all this light is making humans as disoriented as the other creatures we harm by our excess.
The solution is just a light switch away. A must read.
January 16, 2026
What a celebration of the night sky! Craig Childs recounts his bike journey from one of the most light polluted places in America – Las Vegas,- to a location in remote Nevada that is rated Bortal 1 - the darkest sky one can encounter on the face of the Earth. With lyrical writing, he weaves in not just astronomy, but biology, history, native cultures, environmental concerns, all the while capturing, the allure, the intrigued and the magic of the heavens. A great read for anyone who values nature.
February 2, 2026
This was a wonderful book. The author and his friend Irvin bike 200 hundred miles starting in Las Vegas into the desert to a dark Bortle 1 zone. From the lightest place in the world to one of the darkest areas. The book is part travelogue, part memoir, part astronomy lesson and part history lesson. The author laments the loss of our dark skies from light pollution and the introduction of LED lights. He is an incredibly descriptive writer. His description makes one feel that they are actually on the bike trip.
February 3, 2026
The author, Craig Childs, takes us on an enchanting bike ride from Vegas to the darkest night skies in the US; according to his trusty light meter. The trip, over about 9 days, not only is an exploration of the Nevada out-back, but a historic adventure of all the mythology, traditions, and spookiness, of our star filled nights.
This funny, entertaining, and wise book is definitely something you will want to read, at least if you are someone that looks up into the night every once in a while.
This funny, entertaining, and wise book is definitely something you will want to read, at least if you are someone that looks up into the night every once in a while.
September 14, 2025
The author and a friend decide to bike from Las Vegas, a place where night is as bright as daytime, to a distant dark spot to truly see the stars as our ancestors once did. Along the way, he discusses not just the constant threat of light pollution and losing the night sky, but interesting tidbits and musings. The book's slower pace fits its purpose and the author's philosophy and I recommend it.
[I received an advanced copy from the publisher.]
[I received an advanced copy from the publisher.]
December 10, 2025
As I hold Childs in incredibly high esteem I was a little disappointed by this book. It lacked substance and even some of the prose felt a little forced. I remain staunchly in the CC fan club, however, and appreciate how Childs continues to stand for areas in wilderness that can easily be overlooked.
June 10, 2025
Another ride along with curious Craig. Finding a dark sky adjacent to Vegas. Not an idea I’d conceive.
Good, esoteric read.
Good, esoteric read.
June 30, 2025
Since I love everything Craig Childs writes, this is easy.....The Wild Dark is an awesome book and completely in keeping with his collection of writings. I can't wait for the next one!!!!!
October 6, 2025
Getting lost in a wild, rambling journey with Craig Childs is always a treat. I *love* his writing and his ability to draw people in to his brilliant observations of the world around him.
November 12, 2025
Three stars only because I got a little impatient with long diatribes about constellations, scientific data, Greek mythology, all subjects that I have no background in.
December 9, 2025
Beautiful book written with wonderful prose describing night skies as if you were there.
January 3, 2026
Journal of an interesting adventure to explore the whole spectrum of night skies, from Las Vegas to the Nevada desert. It raised my awareness of artificial light as an environmental impact.
January 9, 2026
Felt like I should’ve enjoyed this book more than I did, really liked the concept of it. Just didn’t love the writing style and wasn’t hooked by either of the main characters.
January 13, 2026
How did such a dreamy book make me feel wiser?
February 7, 2026
Wonderful premise, and a compelling read in support of natural darkness. There were some minor inaccuracies in the history and science, but as an experience, I enjoyed it.
Displaying 1 - 23 of 23 reviews