Edward Abbey relates another segment of his life where he fights Civilization. Abbey leaves Albuquerque home to find work as a forest ranger in Moab, Utah. He loves the desert and rapidly learns that the government plans to build a four-lane road through the Arches.
Abbey calls this progressive improvement for Industrial Tourism. The desert preservers fight the developers, as well as the Atomic Energy Commission, which encourages a wild scramble for uranium in Utah and Colorado. Then there is an accidental double murder, the paranoid local cattle rancher, and Abbey’s embittered assistant, Viviano. So, it goes.
Will the four-lane highway cut through the desert, will the murderer or murderers be found, will Moon Eve, a runaway horse who escaped ten years ago, be rescued, will Edward Abbey, naked as Adam in the Bible, lost in a dreamlike existence, remember that he is distinct from the surrounding trees?
Desert Solitaire is a fine, engaging literary gem.
'My favourite book about the wilderness' Cheryl Strayed, author of Wild
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.
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…
Written by Margaret McKee and Fred Chisenhall and published by Louisiana State University Press. A fine, detailed book centered on Memphis, Tennessee’s famous Beale Street, the birthplace of the Blues.
Beale Black & Blue covers the history of civil rights, economics, politics, and musicians starting from the early 20th Century until the late 1960s and the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
The two authors collect deep and accurate oral histories from Nat D. Williams—scholar, columnist, and pioneering Black disc Jockey. The book illuminates the poverty, cultural oppression, and features the lives of B. B. King, Muddy Waters, W. C. Handy, Arthur Crudup, and includes the early life of Elvis Presley, who, like the other musicians and writers, escaped the harsh structural life and times on Beale, Black and Blue.
W. C. Handy, Furry Lewis, Booker White, Lillie May Glover, Roosevelt Sykes, Arthur Crudup, B. B. King, Bobby Blue Bland, Muddy Waters - these and other musicians, singers, and songwriters, including the young Elvis Presley, eventually went to Beale Street in Memphis, Tennessee, to learn, improve, and practice their art. ""To Handy and untold other blacks, Beale became as much a symbol of escape from black despair as Harriet Tubman's underground railroad,"" says Margaret McKee and Fred Chisenhall.
They present Beale as a living microcosm of determination, survival, and change - from its early days as a raucous haven for…
Wally Lamb is a New York Times bestselling author. The River Is Waiting is Mr. Lamb’s third Oprah Book Club selection. This book is a very deep human struggle about a young father “grappling with unbearable tragedy as he searches for hope, redemption, and the possibility of forgiveness.”
This is an emotionally tough book to read. Once a reader finishes reading The River Is Waiting, that book, the characters within, and the raw experiences they live through will end. They will linger in all the darkest places.
#1 New York Times bestselling author Wally Lamb, celebrated for two prior Oprah Book Club selections, returns with an exceptional third pick, a propulsive novel following a young father grappling with unbearable tragedy as he searches for hope, redemption, and the possibility of forgiveness.
Corby Ledbetter is struggling. New fatherhood, the loss of his job, and a growing secret addiction have thrown his marriage to his beloved Emily into a tailspin. And that's before he causes the tragedy that tears the family apart. Sentenced to prison, Corby struggles to survive life on the inside, where he…
Tony Consiglio started the famous Sally’s Apizza Restaurant in 1938, made famous by Frank Sinatra, Tommy Dorsey, Johnny Mathis, Sammy Davis, Lyle Lovett, and Andre Agassi. In 1940, Tony and Frank Sinatra hit the road together, very close friends until Frank passed away. Tony was right there.
The stories come directly from Tony, who was constantly by Frank’s side, on the road, in night clubs, all night gatherings that included Humphrey Bogart, Lauren Bacall, Gene Kelly, Joe DiMaggio, Pierre Salinger, Buddy Rich, Tony Curtis, Janet Leigh, and these parties usually lasted beyond sunrise. Tony poured the drinks. He never touched alcohol, but Tony said that he used to get stoned on the fumes.
