Ellen L. (LdyLopes) reviewed on 8/8/2006 + 109 more book reviews

The enduring appeal of the desert is strikingly apparent in this beautiful, poetic study that has become a classic volume on the American Southwest.Frist published in 1903,it is the work of Mary Austin(1868-1934),a prolific novelist,poet, critc and playwright who was also an ardent early feminist and defender of Indians and Spanish Americans. She is best known today for this enchanting paean to the vast,arid,yet remarkably beautiful lands that lie east of the Sierra Nevadas,stretching south from Yosemite through Death Valley to the Mojave Desert.

Comprised of 14 sketches,the book describes plants,animals, mountains,birds,skies,Indians,prospectors,towns and other freatures of the desert in serene,beautifully modulated prose that perfectly conveys the timeless cycles of life and death in a harsh land. Any reader of this book will never again think of the desert as a lifeless, barren envirnoment,but rather, as a place of rare,austere beauty,rich in plant and animal,that weaves a lasting spell over its human inhabitants.

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