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Deserts are environments that can be inhospitable even to seasoned explorers. Craig Childs has spent years in the deserts of the American West, and his treks through arid lands in search of water reveal the natural world at its most extreme.
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The "essence of the American desert," as the subtitle of Craig Childs's book has it, is water. A desert, by definition, lacks it, but when water does come, it comes in torrential, sometimes devastating abundance. Childs, a thirtysomething desert rat with a vast knowledge of the Southwest's remote corners, knows this fact well. "Most rain falling anywhere but the desert comes slow enough that it is swallowed by the soil without comment," he observes. "Desert rains, powerful and sporadic, tend to hit the ground, gather into floods, and are gone before the water can sink five inches into the ground."
About the Author:
The travels that Childs recounts in this vivid narrative take him from places sometimes parched, sometimes swimming, from the depths of the Grand Canyon to the dry limestone tanks of the lava-strewn Sonoran Desert. As he travels, Childs gives a close reading of the desert landscape ("the moral," he writes at one point, "is that if you know the land and its maps, you might live"), observing the rocks, plants, animals, and people that call it home. Some of his adventures will remind readers of Edward Abbey's Desert Solitaire--save that Childs writes without Abbey's bluster, and with a measured lyricism that well suits the achingly lovely back canyons and cactus forests of the Southwest. By turns travelogue, ecological treatise, and meditative essay, Childs's book will speak to anyone who has spent time under desert skies, wondering when the next drop of rain might fall. --Gregory McNamee
Craig Childs is a river guide, a field instructor, an adventurer, and a writer. He camps in the back country of the American West at least nine months of the year, usually living in the back of his truck, out of a river vessel, or from his backpack. He hasn't had a phone in 10 years.
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- PublisherBack Bay Books
- Publication date2001
- ISBN 10 0316610690
- ISBN 13 9780316610698
- BindingPaperback
- Edition number1
- Number of pages304
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The Secret Knowledge of Water: There Are Two Easy Ways to Die in the Desert: Thirst and Drowning
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The Secret Knowledge of Water : Discovering the Essence of the American Desert by Childs, Craig [Paperback ]
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Book Description Paperback. Condition: new. Paperback. Deserts are environments that can be inhospitable even to seasoned explorers. Craig Childs has spent years in the deserts of the American West, and his treks through arid lands in search of water reveal the natural world at its most extreme. The author of "Crossing Paths" takes on the defining subject of the arid west: water. His odyssey of risk and adventure follows the search for the secretive water of the desert where flows are hidden, ephemeral, sudden, and violent. Line drawings throughout. Shipping may be from multiple locations in the US or from the UK, depending on stock availability. Seller Inventory # 9780316610698
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