Here's why Greg suggests Desert Solitaire...
We all need to value and defend the Wilderness. Beautiful writing, strong arguments, and radical activism might be just the thing Earth and its human inhabitants need.
About the book
Desert Solitaire
by Edward Abbey
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. --Simon & Schuster
The Curious Story of Edward Abbey
About the reader
Greg Monfils, History
Greg previously recommended:
- The Metamorphosis by Franz Kafka
- The Boys of Summer by Roger Kahn
- The Tree by John Fowles
- Lives of a Cell by Lewis Thomas
- Directed by Desire by June Jordan
- A Book of Luminous Things: an International Anthology of Poetry edited by Czeslaw Milosz