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The Sierra Club Desert Reader
The Sierra Club Desert Reader is the inaugural volume in a new series of literary celebrations of the Earth's biomes -- the major ecological communities that have shaped the collective human experience.
This unprecedented, global anthology of fiction, poetry, folklore, natural history, travel commentary, and more, collected and introduced by a preeminent environmental writer, demonstrates the desert's power to enthrall and inspire our finest thinkers and writers.
Represented in this distinguished volume are poets from ancient China (translated by Ezra Pound), Egyptian inscriptions, the logs of Captain James Cook, and the chilling fantasies of Edgar Allan Poe. Among other names drawn from many genres are Charles Doughty, Marco Polo, Mark Twain, Antoine de Saint-Exupery, Herodotus, Pliny the Elder, T. E. Lawrence, Bruce Chatwin, Edith Wharton, Percy Bysshe Shelley, Jorge Luis Borges, as well as classic desert advocates Mary Austin, John Muir, and Edward Abbey.
Avowed desert rats and the city-bound -- anyone drawn to the magical realm of open skies and space and dust -- will find The Sierra Club Desert Reader a trove of literary riches.
This unprecedented, global anthology of fiction, poetry, folklore, natural history, travel commentary, and more, collected and introduced by a preeminent environmental writer, demonstrates the desert's power to enthrall and inspire our finest thinkers and writers.
Represented in this distinguished volume are poets from ancient China (translated by Ezra Pound), Egyptian inscriptions, the logs of Captain James Cook, and the chilling fantasies of Edgar Allan Poe. Among other names drawn from many genres are Charles Doughty, Marco Polo, Mark Twain, Antoine de Saint-Exupery, Herodotus, Pliny the Elder, T. E. Lawrence, Bruce Chatwin, Edith Wharton, Percy Bysshe Shelley, Jorge Luis Borges, as well as classic desert advocates Mary Austin, John Muir, and Edward Abbey.
Avowed desert rats and the city-bound -- anyone drawn to the magical realm of open skies and space and dust -- will find The Sierra Club Desert Reader a trove of literary riches.
307 pages, Paperback
First published November 7, 1995
11 people want to read
About the author
Gregory McNamee
60 books8 followersGregory 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.
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Displaying 1 of 1 review
April 30, 2017
// From my 2006 book diary:
Excellent collection of writings on the desert lands of the world.
Anybody who's slept under the open sky in a desert will surely agree with Ernest Renan's observation: "At night in this waterless air the stars come down just out of reach of your fingers". That is just one of the gems contained in this book.
If you appreciate both the the beauty of deserts and the challenge of desertification, you may want to check out the resources available on the UNCCD website.
Excellent collection of writings on the desert lands of the world.
Anybody who's slept under the open sky in a desert will surely agree with Ernest Renan's observation: "At night in this waterless air the stars come down just out of reach of your fingers". That is just one of the gems contained in this book.
If you appreciate both the the beauty of deserts and the challenge of desertification, you may want to check out the resources available on the UNCCD website.
Displaying 1 of 1 review