Product Description
Like the highest mountain peaks, deserts are environments that can be inhospitable even to the most seasoned explorers. As Craig Childs makes clear in this highly praised book, there are two easy ways to die in the desert: thirst or drowning. His extraordinary treks through arid lands in search of water - mysterious solitary water holes, a network of streams that flow only at night, a gushing fountain that conceals a hidden lake, serene and otherworldy - are an astonshing revelation of the natural world at its most extreme.

Amazon.com Review
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."

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

CUSTOMER REVIEWS (Average Customer Rating: 4.5 based on 27 reviews)

Remarkable journey with water

As a desert person I reveled in this book about finding water in the desert, but it is more than that. It is about how water affects all of us and why we need to take care of that precious resource. I have purchased additional copies from time to time to pass on to others. His spititual approach to water and to life is what really moved me the most. Don't miss this journey.
August 29, 2008

poorly written, at least at the beginning

I perhaps shouldn't be writing a review for a book of which I read only 15 pages, but I don't think the sample of reviews should be skewed toward people who could stomach more of the writing than I could, either. The book put me in mind of George Orwell's essay "Politics and the English Language", which isn't exactly on point, but is fundamentally about writers whose writing gets in the way of communication and even thought. There seem to be some interesting stories in this book hidden behind what veers from prose to the edge of bad poetry; it didn't seem to me to be worth it.

Your mileage may vary; if it's convenient to look at a sample of the writing, perhaps you will like the style better than I did. I would warn you about thinking you're buying something readable, though, just because the topic interests you.
March 03, 2008

Water Pockets

This is a great book for those that love the desert. The descriptive narrative is beautiful. The abundance of the waters in stark rock desert is amazing. Ancient trails to water, pockets in the sandstone, Native American religeons tied to the seeming magic appearance of waters coming from the earth. All tied together with descriptive prose that lets you feel the cool water after scorched days of walking. There is just enough scientific fact blended in that you will find yourself learning a little something as well. I also recommend the authors book "The Animal Dialogues".
March 03, 2008

Interesting book

This was a very interesting book about water in the desert. We read it for book club and it made for a very interesting discussion.
February 28, 2008

Disappointed

I was excited to read this book based on the reviews. I was expecting a hiking adventure and narrative about people affected by water. What I read was confused and disconnected. It was the two styles I mentioned plus detailed scientific analysis of flowers and geology. Most of it was in the Grand Canyon area but it also dealt with parts of New Mexico and southern Arizona. I would not recommend this book.
January 27, 2008

SIMILAR PRODUCTS

House of Rain: Tracking a Vanished Civilization Across the American Southwest
by Craig Childs

The Animal Dialogues: Uncommon Encounters in the Wild
by Craig Childs

The Way Out: A True Story of Ruin and Survival
by Craig Childs

The Desert Cries: A Season of Flash Floods in a Dry Land
by Craig Leland Childs

Sandstone Spine: Seeking the Anasazi on the First Traverse of the Comb Ridge
by David Roberts
by Greg Child