The Sierra Club Desert Reader; a literary companion

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