Rating: 
Summary: Wretched
Review: The only time that I would recommend this book would be if you were about to be tortured. While your captors were discussing how best to inflict torment on you, you could whip this out and start reading. They would soon give up, quickly realizing that your tolerance for pain was already far higher than any methods of theirs could hope to break. "How To Release Anthrax In Public Places" has done more to advance literature and society than this tripe. As it stands, Disney should buy out the National Parks and put in theme parks with cool rides and characters. Maybe there can be a "Dunk-The-Hypocrite", where a Disney employee dressed as Abbey can sit over a tank of beer and say things like "hey, little missy, I'm a studly 50-year-old college lecturer" or "you'll need a hiking permit for that".
Rating: 
Summary: A pivotal book that changed the way I view the desert
Review: Edward Abbey introduced me to the desert via this book. I was never aware of the inherent beauty of emptiness, the fullness of the barren landscape, and the passion that can be aroused by areas others reject as hostile and useless. For me, this book was pivotal in that it made me seek other books by Abbey as well as Stegner, Bass, Zwinger, McPhee, Dillard, and others whose senses and intellect are focused on God's creation.When I heard of Abbey's death almost a decade ago, I realized that a light had gone out - but on reflection, I realize he turned on many other lights before he left.
Rating:
Summary: Amazing
Review: This book is for anyone with any love of the outdoors. Every time I pick it up and read it, even if it's only for a moment, I see the desert. Abbey has written an astonishing memorial to mother Nature. A must read.
Rating:
Summary: One of my Favorite Books
Review: I first read this book years ago when I was in college. It immediately became one of my favorite books, and it remains one of favorites to this day. Like the Catcher in the Rye and some of Steinbeck's books, I reread this book every two or three years. Abbey weaves a wonderful story of his experiences and observations while in the Canyonlands. While he is often irreverant, he really does a magnificient job of conveying a sense of the Canyonlands which includes the wildlife, plants, the geology.
Rating:
Summary: Feel the passion of a man in the wilderness.
Review: Are you one of those city-people? Working all day in buildings surrounded by steel and stone? Read this book and you wish to be in that wilderness. With poetic words Abbey makes you dream of deep canyons, hot deserts, powerful rivers and high mountains. Feel the heat, thirst and happiness. This book contains the personal and critical view and the experience of an outdoor man in an industrial world. It tells stories about dangerous adventures full of action an humor. If you have ever been in the canyon country this book is a must.
Rating:
Summary: A witty, intelligent book written by a man.
Review: If you've ever visited the four corners region of the country, you know the irresistable romantic lure Abbey talks about in this book. Utter isolation is really what this book is about, and no matter what level of outdoors preson you are, you'll have no problem empathizing with what Abbey has to say. Great Book.
Rating:
Summary: Beautifully-textured account of a soon-to-be-lost landscape
Review: I discovered the Desert Southwest a decade ago, and re-read this classic whenever I long to return but can't. Abbey's spare descriptions of an equally spare country that he obviously loves are an eloquent plea for the preservation wild places around the planet, not just in the slickrock regions of the Colorado Plateau.
Rating:
Summary: Moving and beautiful.
Review: This is one of the best books I've read in a long time. Abbey's descriptions of the canyon lands are heart felt. You can just picture hundreds of tourists, driving a loop road through Any National Park, USA, and feel his frustrations. But more importantly, he describes wilderness to hundreds of people who might never experience it.
Rating:
Summary: One of the most important books of all time
Review: The American experience has given to the world two priceless things above all: the fullest development of the idea of the worth and dignity of the individual life, and love and value of wilderness for its own sake. Desert Solitaire is a monument to, and a celebration of, both. It is one of the most important books of all time, for in it is the evolution of human conciousness. I'm grateful to Ed Abbey for his book, and for his encompassing, inspiring vision of the American West.
Rating:
Summary: A book that will take you through evey emotion and back.
Review: This is the best book I have ever read. This author far exceeds any in explaining the feelings that are felt through the love of nature and the frustration with society today. This book made me feel alive, the adventure, excitement, sadness, elation that this book can stir in you is incredible. If you only read one book in your life then this is the book for you.
|
