The Sierra Club Desert Reader

San Francisco: Sierra Club Books, 1995. Paperback white quarto with orange to spine. xxiv, 307 pages; 21 cm Price label to back cover. Extremely mild rubbing to head and foot of spine. Near fine. . Paperback. ISBN: 0871564262

Contents: The Arabian and Indian deserts: Ruins / Percy Bysshe Shelley -- A prayer & invocation to the Prince of rain / Eleazar Ha-Kallir -- The wilderness of Judea / Gertrude Bell -- Light / Pierre Loti -- From Jum'a al-Fararja to Jazi Al 'Aradi / Jum'a Al-Fararja -- Lawrence comes to Arabia / T.E. Lawrence -- Arabia deserta / Charles M. Doughty -- The historic fart / Iraqi folktale -- The Persian desert / Marco Polo; Inner Asia: The road to Ashkabad / Ella R. Christie -- A nightmare on the Turkmeni dunes / Andrei Platonov -- The Tebbad / Arminius Vambery -- High desert / Theodore & Kermit Roosevelt -- Prester John / Sir John Mandeville -- Distances of the Gobi / Mongolian wedding song -- The lake among the singing dunes / Mildred Cable -- On foot across the Gobi / Slavomir Rawicz -- Exile / Li T'ai Po & Li Yi; Australia: Where the frost comes from / Noongahburrah folktale -- Aborigines / William Dampier & James Cook -- The Simpson desert / Charles Sturt -- Ayers Rock / Baldwin Spencer & F.J. Gillen -- Native cat stakes out his territory / Pintupi folktale -- Rain / Tingarri song -- The music of the desert / Bruce Chatwin; Antarctica: World's end / Edgar Allan Poe -- Death in the polar desert / William Bowers & Robert Scott -- Cold / Richard Byrd -- Admiralty Bay / David Campbell. Abstract: Gathers essays, folktales, poetry, and other writings about deserts, desert ecology, and the fragility of the desert environment.