by Gary Paul Nabhan (Editor)
In this refreshing collection, one of our best writers on desert places, Gary Paul Nabhan, challenges traditional notions of the desert. Beautiful, reflective, and at times humorous, Nabhan's extended essay also called "The Nature of Desert Nature" reveals the complexity of what a desert is and can be. He passionately writes about what it is like to visit a desert and what living in a desert looks like when viewed through a new frame, turning age-old notions of the desert on their heads.
Nabhan invites a prism of voices--friends, colleagues, and advisors from his more than four decades of study of deserts--to bring their own perspectives. Scientists, artists, desert contemplatives, poets, and writers bring the desert into view and investigate why these places compel us to walk through their sands and beneath their cacti and acacia. We observe the spines and spears, stings and songs of the desert anew. Unexpected. Surprising. Enchanting. Like the desert itself, each essay offers renewed vocabulary and thoughtful perceptions. The desert inspires wonder. Attending to history, culture, science, and spirit, The Nature of Desert Nature celebrates the bounty and the significance of desert places. ContributorsThomas M. Antonio
Homero Aridjis
James Aronson
Tessa Bielecki
Alberto Búrquez Montijo
Francisco Cantú
Douglas Christie
Paul Dayton
Alison Hawthorne Deming
Father David Denny
Exequiel Ezcurra
Thomas Lowe Fleischner
Jack Loeffler
Ellen McMahon
Rubén Martínez
Curt Meine
Alberto Mellado Moreno
Paul Mirocha
Gary Paul Nabhan
Ray Perotti
Larry Stevens
Stephen Trimble
Octaviana V. Trujillo
Benjamin T. Wilder
Andy Wilkinson
Ofelia Zepeda
Author Biography
Gary Paul Nabhan is the Kellogg Endowed Chair at the University of Arizona's Southwest Center. He is author or editor of more than thirty books, including Enduring Seeds, Gathering in the Desert, and Food from the Radical Center. Honored with a MacArthur "Genius" Award, a Lannan Literary Fellowship, the John Burroughs Medal for nature writing, and other awards, Nabhan has lived in the desert for more than forty years.