shopping cart
Save up to 30% on our Staff Picks
Call us:  800-878-7323 HELP
McAfee SECURE helps keep you safe from identity theft, credit card fraud, spyware, spam, viruses and online scams.
Interviews | December 1, 2009

Megan: IMG A Meaty Tale: The Powells.com Interview with Julie Powell



juliepowellJulie Powell charmed readers with Julie and Julia, in which she chronicled her quest to cook, in one year, every recipe out of Julia Child's... Continue »
  1. $17.49 Sale Hardcover add to wish list

Ships free on qualified orders.
Add to Cart
$9.95
List price: $14.00
Used Trade Paper
Ships in 1 to 3 days
Add to Wishlist
Qty Store Section
1 Beaverton Literature- A to Z

Desert Solitaire

by Edward Abbey

Desert Solitaire Cover

ISBN13: 9780671695880
ISBN10: 0671695886
Condition: Standard
All Product Details

Only 1 left in stock at $9.95!

Synopses & Reviews

Publisher Comments:

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.

Review:

"[Desert Solitaire] is the outgrowth of a bitter awareness of all that has been lost, all that is being lost, all that is going to be lost in that glory of our American democracy, our system of national parks. Designed to set aside, for all the people, wild areas of special beauty, this system originated with a twofold purpose: to serve the public and to preserve the areas. These two goals are now in head-on collision. For 'to serve the public' has come to mean 'to serve the public in automobiles'." The New York Times Book Review

Review:

"What entertains many and exasperates others is Abbey's unique prose voice. Alternately misanthropic and sentimental, enraged and hilarious, it is the voice of a full-blooded man airing his passions." Peter Carlson

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." The New York Times Book Review

Table of Contents

CONTENTS

Author's Introduction

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-Eyod 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

What Our Readers Are Saying

Add a comment for a chance to win!
Average customer rating based on 1 comment:
Krystal, August 20, 2006 (view all comments by Krystal)
Desert Solitaire is Edward Abbey's description his of time as a park ranger at Arches National Park. His time there, spent mostly in solitude, allowed him to ponder many issues pertaining to America's National Parks. He does not understand why his fellow American's do not feel the same way he does about America's untouched wilderness. I believe that many of his ideas about National Parks that were true when this book was written, will remain true for many years to come.
Was this comment helpful? | Yes | No
(8 of 22 readers found this comment helpful)

Product Details

ISBN:
9780671695880
Author:
Parnall, Peter
Author:
Parnall, Peter
Publisher:
Touchstone Books
Location:
New York :
Subject:
General
Subject:
Literary
Subject:
Biography
Subject:
Biology
Subject:
Authors, American
Subject:
Novelists, American
Subject:
Environmentalists
Subject:
Arches national park (utah)
Subject:
Abbey, edward, 1927-1989
Subject:
Desert biology
Subject:
Park rangers.
Subject:
Arches National Park
Subject:
General Nature
Subject:
Novelists, American -- 20th century.
Subject:
Abbey, Edward
Copyright:
Edition Number:
1st Touchstone ed.
Edition Description:
B102
Series Volume:
no. 68-0204430
Publication Date:
January 1990
Binding:
Paperback
Grade Level:
General/trade
Language:
English
Illustrations:
Yes
Pages:
288
Dimensions:
8.54x5.42x.73 in. .60 lbs.

Other books you might like

  1. $6.95 Used Hardcover add to wish list

    Prairie Nocturne

    Ivan Doig
  2. $7.50 Used Trade Paper add to wish list

    Blue Desert

    Charles Bowden
  3. $15.00 New Trade Paper add to wish list
  4. $7.95 Used Trade Paper add to wish list

    Into the Wild

    Jon Krakauer
  5. $12.50 Used Trade Paper add to wish list

    Ishmael

    Daniel Quinn
  6. $8.00 Used Trade Paper add to wish list

    A Moveable Feast

    Ernest Hemingway

Related Aisles

  • back to top

Powell's City of Books is an independent bookstore in Portland, Oregon, that fills a whole city block with more than a million new, used, and out of print books. Shop those shelves — plus literally millions more books, DVDs, and eBooks — here at Powells.com.