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Desert solitaire : a season in the wilderness / by Edward Abbey ; drawings by Peter Parnall.

By: Material type: TextTextPublication details: New York : Simon & Schuster, 1990.Edition: 1st Touchstone edDescription: xiv, 269 pages : illustrations ; 22 cmContent type:
  • text
Media type:
  • unmediated
Carrier type:
  • volume
ISBN:
  • 0671695886
  • 9780671695880
Subject(s): Genre/Form:
Contents:
The first morning -- Solitaire -- The serpents of paradise -- Cliffrose and bayonets -- Polemic: industrial tourism and the national parks -- Rocks -- Cowboys and Indians -- Cowboys and Indians, part II -- Water -- The heat of noon: rock and tree and cloud -- The moon-eyed horse -- Down the river -- Havasu -- The dead man at Grandview Point -- Tukuhnikivats, the island in the desert -- Episodes and visions -- Terra incognita: into the maze -- Bedrock and paradox.
Summary: An account of the author's experiences, observations, and reflections as a seasonal park ranger in southeast Utah.Summary: 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.
Fiction notes: Click to open in new window
Holdings
Item type Home library Collection Call number Materials specified Status Date due Barcode Item holds
Adult Book Adult Book Main Library Biography ABBEY, E. A124 Available 33111010806772
Total holds: 0

Enhanced descriptions from Syndetics:

Hailed by The New York Times as "a passionately felt, deeply poetic book," the moving autobiographical work of Edward Abbey, considered the Thoreau of the American West, and his passion for the southwestern wilderness.

Desert Solitaire is a collection of vignettes about life in the wilderness and the nature of the desert itself by park ranger and conservationist, Edward Abbey. The book details the unique adventures and conflicts the author faces, from dealing with the damage caused by development of the land or excessive tourism, to discovering a dead body. However Desert Solitaire is not just a collection of one man's stories, the book is also a philosophical memoir, full of Abbey's reflections on the desert as a paradox, at once beautiful and liberating, but also isolating and cruel. Often compared to Thoreau's Walden , Desert Solitaire is a powerful discussion of life's mysteries set against the stirring backdrop of the American southwestern wilderness.

" ... Desert solitaire was first published in 1968"--Page 4 of cover.

"A Touchstone book."

The first morning -- Solitaire -- The serpents of paradise -- Cliffrose and bayonets -- Polemic: industrial tourism and the national parks -- Rocks -- Cowboys and Indians -- Cowboys and Indians, part II -- Water -- The heat of noon: rock and tree and cloud -- The moon-eyed horse -- Down the river -- Havasu -- The dead man at Grandview Point -- Tukuhnikivats, the island in the desert -- Episodes and visions -- Terra incognita: into the maze -- Bedrock and paradox.

An account of the author's experiences, observations, and reflections as a seasonal park ranger in southeast Utah.

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.

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