Desert Solitaire: A Season in the Wilderness

Edward Abbey

1968 • 269 pages

Ratings44

Average rating3.9

"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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Popular Reviews

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Amy

Abbey has some beautiful descriptions of the desert and some incredible stories. I felt vertigo just from reading his descriptions of rappelling down into a canyon. But his overall tone is one of superiority and mockery of anyone who doesn't share his all-encompassing love of the wild.

February 11, 2012

Reaha

Beautiful descriptions of the desert, but I hated the narrator, which is to say Edward Abbey himself.

January 1, 2017

Kathleen

Gorgeous writing, although the man was definitely of his time. Actually, was it ever really okay to call people “cripples” and dismiss them as unimportant?? Beautiful writer, ugly human.

April 9, 2020

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