{"product_id":"desert-solitaire-9780008283339","title":"Desert Solitaire","description":"\u003cb\u003eBook Synopsis\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e'My favourite book about the wilderness' Cheryl Strayed, author of Wild\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e In this shimmering masterpiece of American nature writing, Edward Abbey ventures alone into the canyonlands of Moab, Utah, to work as a seasonal ranger for the United States National Park Service.\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e Living out of a trailer, Abbey captures in rapt, poetic prose the landscape of the desert; a world of terracotta earth, empty skies, arching rock formations, cliffrose, juniper, pinyon pine and sand sage. His summers become spirit quests, taking him in search of wild horses and Ancient Puebloan petroglyphs, up mountains and across tribal lands, and down the Glen Canyon by river. He experiences both sides of his new home; its incredible beauty and its promise of liberation, but also its isolating, cruel side, at one point discovering a dead tourist at an isolated area of the Grand Canyon.\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e In his own irascible style, Abbey uses his time in the desert to meditate on the tension \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eTrade Review\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cp\u003e‘\u003cstrong\u003eHis masterpiece\u003c\/strong\u003e. Despite its stated purpose as a eulogy to a lost world, it seems hardly to have aged at all. Part of the book’s staying power resides in the synthesis Abbey created between the American desert — the red-rock canyons, “Abbey’s country” — and the beautiful, hard-chiselled prose, as rough and gorgeous as the land itself, that he used to celebrate its harshness and mystery. \u003cstrong\u003eNone have matched his style\u003c\/strong\u003e’ \u003cem\u003eSalon\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e           \u003cp\u003e‘\u003cstrong\u003eLike a ride on a bucking bronco\u003c\/strong\u003e . . . rough, tough, combative. The author is a rebel and an eloquent loner. His is \u003cstrong\u003ea passionately felt, deeply poetic book\u003c\/strong\u003e . . . set down in a lean, racing prose, in a close-knit style of power and beauty’ \u003cem\u003eNew York Times\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e           \u003cp\u003e‘\u003cstrong\u003eAn American masterpiece\u003c\/strong\u003e … part memoir, part meditation on nature, part crusty and slightly mad cultural commentary’ \u003cem\u003eNew Yorker\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e           \u003cp\u003e‘An uncommonly beautiful love letter to solitude and the spiritual rewards of getting lost. \u003cstrong\u003eA miraculously beautiful book\u003c\/strong\u003e’ \u003cem\u003eBrain Pickings\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e           \u003cp\u003e‘\u003cstrong\u003eEdward Abbey is the Thoreau of the American West\u003c\/strong\u003e’ \u003cem\u003eWashington Post\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e           \u003cp\u003e’Abbey’s voice, like that of Thomas Paine in \u003cem\u003eCommon Sense,\u003c\/em\u003e never fades away … \u003cstrong\u003ePresident Trump, please read \u003cem\u003eDesert Solitaire\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/strong\u003e’ Douglas Brinkley, \u003cem\u003eNew York Times\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"HarperCollins Publishers","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":48863930581335,"sku":"9780008283339","price":10.44,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0817\/1739\/5799\/files\/9780008283339.jpg?v=1722269663","url":"https:\/\/bookcurl.com\/products\/desert-solitaire-9780008283339","provider":"Book Curl","version":"1.0","type":"link"}