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Book Summary and Reviews of Desert Solitaire by Edward Abbey

Desert Solitaire by Edward Abbey

Desert Solitaire

by Edward Abbey

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  • Published:
  • Apr 1988, 256 pages
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About this book

Book Summary

This memoir of life in the American desert by the author of The Monkey Wrench Gang is a nature writing classic on par with Rachel Carson's Silent Spring.

In Desert Solitaire, Edward Abbey recounts his many escapades, adventures, and epiphanies as an Arches National Park ranger outside Moab, Utah. Brimming with arresting insights, impassioned arguments for wilderness conservation, and a raconteur's wit, it is one of Abbey's most critically acclaimed works.

Through stories and philosophical musings, Abbey reflects on the condition of our remaining wilderness, the future of a civilization, and his own internal struggle with morality. As the world continues its rapid development, Abbey's cry to maintain the natural beauty of the West remains just as relevant today as when this book first appeared in 1968.

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Reviews

Media Reviews

"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." —New York Times Book Review

"This is a well made and well illustrated book (at last a good hard-back version!), with more than a dozen fine ink drawings....Desert Solitaire deserves such a handsome format." —Bloomsbury Review

This information about Desert Solitaire was first featured in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.

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Author Information

Edward Abbey

Edward Abbey worked for sixteen years as a ranger with the National Park Service and National Forest Service, and is the author of Black Sun, The Monkey Wrench Gang, The Fool's Progress, and more than a dozen other books. He died in 1989.

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