Desert Solitaire | 
| Author: Edward Abbey
Publisher: Ballantine Books
Category: Book
List Price: $7.99
Buy Used: $0.44
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Avg. Customer Rating:  120 reviews
Sales Rank: 57204
Media: Mass Market Paperback
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 352
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.4
Dimensions (in): 6.9 x 4.2 x 1
ISBN: 0345326490
Dewey Decimal Number: 917.9259
EAN: 9780345326492
ASIN: 0345326490
Publication Date: January 12, 1985
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Amazon.com
With language as colorful as a Canyonlands sunset and a perspective as pointed as a prickly pear, Cactus Ed captures the heat, mystery, and surprising bounty of desert life. Desert Solitaire is a meditation on the stark landscapes of the red-rock West, a passionate vote for wilderness, and a howling lament for the commercialization of the American outback.
Product Description
"A passionately felt, deeply poetic book. It has philosophy. It has humor. It has its share of nerve-tingling adventures...set down in a lean, racing prose, in a close-knit style of power and beauty."
THE NEW YORK TIMES BOOKREVIEW
Edward Abbey lived for three seasons in the desert at Moab, Utah, and what he discovered about the land before him, the world around him, and the heart that beat within, is a fascinating, sometimes raucous, always personal account of a place that has already disappeared, but is worth remembering and living through again and again.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 115 more reviews...
 I now understand why this is considered a "Nature Classic". July 31, 2008
I purchased this book because David Quammen referenced it in one of his books, and I really enjoy Quammen's books. It is listed on various websites and in some magazines as a "Nature Classic".
I have visited and hiked the deserts and canyon in Utah and northern Arizona. That allowed me to feel a lot of what Abbey writes about. It is a special place. I wish I could go back and see Arches National Park when Abbey was there. (It was Arches National Monument at the time of his stay there.)
While there are some controversial things in this book, and while I don't agree with everything Abbey writes, I have to say that I really hated to come to the end of this book. Besides the stories about nature, Abbey also writes about some of the human activities in this area.
I think I understand why people call this a landmark book. The environmental movement was just starting in the sixties. (Does anyone else remember the green Ecology symbol?)
Must reading May 4, 2008
An early environmentalist even before the term came into use. Ranks up there with Sand County Almanac and Silent Spring. A must read for those who care about the environment. Abbey predicted some of the water problems that now face the southwest.
Fantastic Book April 26, 2008
This is my favorite book. I consider Abbey to be a hippie environmentalist--a sort of modern day Thoreau. The book will suck you in and you'll be wishing you could run off to Moab and have a beer with Abbey.
 A classic... April 13, 2008
This is "classic Abbey" and his best work. What else can be said? This book should be on everyone's reading list whether you agree with Abbey on everything or not. I loved it. You will especially enjoy it if you have an affinity for deserts, the southwest, or Moab country.
One of the great man in nature books April 3, 2008
3 out of 3 found this review helpful
Stumbled onto this in my late teens in the early 80s and never looked back. Abbey's extreme love of nature and his well-defended loathing of what we've done to our natural world add up to a real eye-opener for those, like me at 18, who haven't thought much about how great this place must have been before we got here.
Abbey's love of solitude and comfort in being in the middle of "nowhere" inspired me to seek out remote places and my life has been all the better for it. His irascible attitude towards government also strikes a strong chord, but the main joys here lie in Ed's awe and wonder at the magnificence of the canyons and mesas he happily lives with before the bulldozers and mindless tourists inevitably arrive. The bits about people driving in for a few minutes and then leaving after taking pictures are truly classic; Ed can be one of the most hilariously dry nature writers when the mood is upon him.
I've since read most all of Abbey but still think DS is his masterpiece.
This book should be in EVERY high school English curriculum.
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