Publisher, Tantor Audio (December 2011)

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"An American masterpiece. A forceful encounter with a man of character and courage." ---The New Yorker

"Like a ride on a bucking bronco . . . rough, tough, combative. The author is a rebel and an eloquent loner. His is a passionately felt, deeply poetic book . . . set down in a lean, racing prose, in a close-knit style of power and beauty." ---The New York Times Book Review

First published in 1968, Desert Solitaire is critically acclaimed author Edward Abbey's memoir of his life during three seasons as a park ranger in southeastern Utah.

When Desert Solitaire was first published in 1968, it became the focus of a nationwide cult. Rude and sensitive. Thought-provoking and mystical. Angry and loving. Both Abbey and this book are all of these and more. Here, the legendary author of The Monkey Wrench Gang, Abbey's Road, and many other critically acclaimed books vividly captures the essence of his life during three seasons as a park ranger in southeastern Utah. This is a rare view of a quest to experience nature in its purest form—the silence, the struggle, the overwhelming beauty. But this is also the gripping, anguished cry of a man of character who challenges the growing exploitation of the wilderness by oil and mining interests, as well as by the tourist industry.

Abbey's observations and challenges remain as relevant now as the day he wrote them. Today, Desert Solitaire asks if any of our incalculable natural treasures can be saved before the bulldozers strike again.

About the Author: Edward Abbey (1927–1989) was born in Home, Pennsylvania, and educated at the University of New Mexico and the University of Edinburgh. His many books include The Monkey Wrench Gang, Brave Cowboy, The Fool's Progress, and Down the River.

About the Narrator: Audiobook veteran and AudioFile Earphones Award winner Michael Kramer has recorded more than two hundred audiobooks for trade publishers and many more for the Library of Congress Talking Books program. His audiobooks include North and South by John Jakes, and a number of other Jakes titles; capers and mysteries by Donald E. Westlake (a.k.a. Richard Stark), including Money for Nothing; and Robert Jordan's fantasy-adventure fiction. In addition, Michael received Audie Award nominations for The Gathering Storm by Robert Jordan and Brandon Sanderson and Dead Aim by Thomas Perry, and a Publishers Weekly Listen-Up Award for Savages by Don Winslow.