Stuff
Product Details
Touchstone, January 1990
Trade Paperback, 288 pages
ISBN-10: 0671695886
ISBN-13: 9780671695880
Description
When Desert Solitaire was first published in 1968, it became the focus of a nationwide cult. Rude and sensitive. Thought-provoking and mystical. Angry and loving. Both Abbey and this book are all of these and more. Here, the legendary author of The Monkey Wrench Gang, Abbey's Road and many other critically acclaimed books vividly captures the essence of his life during three seasons as a park ranger in southeastern Utah. This is a rare view of a quest to experience nature in its purest form -- the silence, the struggle, the overwhelming beauty. But this is also the gripping, anguished cry of a man of character who challenges the growing exploitation of the wilderness by oil and mining interests, as well as by the tourist industry.
Abbey's observations and challenges remain as relevant now as the day he wrote them. Today, Desert Solitaire asks if any of our incalculable natural treasures can be saved before the bulldozers strike again.
Read more:
Browse Inside Desert SolitaireThe New Yorker
An American Masterpiece. A Forceful Encounter with a Man of Character and Courage.
The New York Times Book Review
Like a ride on a bucking bronco...rough, tough, combative. The author is a rebel and an eloquent loner. His is a passionately felt, deeply poetic book...set down in a lean, racing prose, in a close-knit style of power and beauty.
Belleville News Democrat, October 5, 2011
...Newman calls on the usual patriarchs of the natural world: John Muir, Wallace Stegner, John McPhee, Barry Lopez, Edward Abbey, among others - all giants, and all writers who understood that to study nature was to study ourselves. But the ...
Salt Lake Tribune, October 3, 2011
...s Everett Ruess, which covers the erroneous DNA 2009 results that threatened a premature end to the legend. Desert Solitaire, by Edward Abbey It’s a near-impossible choice between this and The Monkey Wrench Gang, but Abbey’s chronicle of ...
Los Angeles Times, October 3, 2011
...Newman calls on the usual patriarchs of the natural world: John Muir, Wallace Stegner, John McPhee, Barry Lopez, Edward Abbey, among others all giants, and all writers who understood that to study nature was to study ourselves. But the book ...
Santa Fe New Mexican, September 24, 2011
...out programs, containing names of graduates in alphabetical order. The first name on the master's list was "Edward Abbey, Philosophy." Astounded that he had been under my nose all this time, I ran to the head of the line. But the elusive ...
Grand Junction Free Press, October 10, 2009
...to reconnect and participate in community discussions at your public library. The first book to be discussed is “Desert Solitaire” by Edward Abbey. Comments on specifics of the book can easily lead to broader conversation about ...
Frommer's, September 17, 2009
...a stint as Yellowstone National Park's superintendent, himself served as Park Service director, from 1929 to 1933. Desert Solitaire, A Season in the Wilderness by Edward Abbey: How better to come to understand the meaning and value of ...
