The Desert: Further Studies in Natural Appearances (American Land Classics)

Book Description

Since its first appearance in 1901, John C. Van Dyke's The Desert has been considered one of the classics of American nature writing. Before its publication, Americans thought of deserts as scorpion-infested wastelands--with names like Devil's Domain and the Lands That God Forgot. All this changed as The Desert drew attention to the extraordinary beauty that existed in the American West: rolling sand dunes, golden vistas, vibrant sunsets, and remarkable plant and animal life. Van Dyke's book captured the nation's imagination at a time when attitudes about the land were changing. It provided a vocabulary that continues to be used as appreciation of deserts increases and ever greater pressures lead to new calls to protect these fragile environments.

With a critical introduction by Peter Wild, this edition offers new insights -- and reveals some surprising truths -- about this legendary author and his best known work. Van Dyke was not, it seems, the "plaster saint of the desert." He was not entirely honest with his readers about the journeys that inspired the book, and his natural history includes serious errors. But in this more informed reading, Wild notes, Van Dyke "emerges as all the more fascinating a writer and his famous book becomes far more intriguing than most readers have imagined through the decades." As the centennial of its publication approaches and the complex story behind its long success is finally told, this new edition of The Desert reveals an equally complex and dramatic narrative: our changing relationship with the American landscape.

"Van Dyke came at just the right time... No sooner had Americans conquered the wilderness, cut down the forests, and slaughtered the buffalo than the romantic nation began sentimentalizing the past, longing for what it had just destroyed." -- from the Introduction

The Desert (Peregrine Smith Literary Naturalists)

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Poetry in Prose

The Desert (Peregrine Smith Literary Naturalists)
John C. Van Dyke
Manufacturer: Peregrine Smith Books
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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Desert Solitaire

ASIN: 087905395X

Book Description

In the early summer of 1898, John C. Van Dyke, an asthmatic forty-two-year-old art historian and critic, rode an Indian pony out of the Hemet Valley, and headed southeast into the Colorado desert. With his dog, his guns, and few supplies, this sickly aesthete wandered, mostly alone, for nearly three years across the deserts of California, Arizona and Mexico. He crossed the Salton Sea Basin, forded the Colorado below Yuma on a raft he built himself, followed the railroad line to Tucson, then turned west again toward Sonora. His exact route is not known; he did not always know where he was himself. He sought both health and beauty in the dry country and wrote that the desert "never had a sacred poet; it has in me only a lover".

This extraordinary book, composed "at odd intervals, when I lay against a rock or propped up in the sand", is a masterpiece of personal philosophy, containing precise scientific analyses of diverse phenomena-- from erosion to sky colors-- and prescient ruminations on the nature of civilization. "The desert should never be reclaimed!" Van Dyke wrote, yet he lived long enough to see the reclamation projects in what became the Imperial Valley. He did not witness the virtual destruction of the Colorado Desert still ongoing. As poet Richard Shelton wonders in his introduction, "Where are the herds of antelope Van Dyke spoke of, and the gray wolves and the pure air?"

This series celebrates the tradition of literary naturalists-- writers who embrace the natural world as the setting for some of our most euphoric and serious experiences. Their literary terrain maps the intimate connections between the human and the natural world, a subject defined by Mary Austin in 1920 as "a third thing... the sum of what passed between me and the Land." Literary naturalists transcend political boundaries, social concerns and historical milieus; they speak for what Henry Beston called the "other nations" of the planet. Their message acquires more w

Customer Reviews:

Poetry in Prose.......2001-05-29

This book is a treasure. Mr. Van Dyke obviously has the soul of a poet, and within his graceful prose he paints vivid and soul-stirring pictures of some of the most beautiful places on earth. He describes in fine detail observations he made on a long trip, on horseback in 1898/99, over, around, and through the lower deserts of Arizona and California. He leaves no stone unturned as he describes the magnificence and beauty of each aspect of the desert, and pulls no punches in his criticism of man's destructive intrusions. To Van Dyke, the play of light and shadow, the star-pocked night skies, the ragged and jagged ranges of mountains, the perfectly adapted plants and animals, the sometimes shifting sands, and the silent river barrier known as the Colorado are each part of the unique sum which is, in its own harsh and angular way, a paradise of color, form, and life: "The Desert."

Speaking as one who has lived on and wandered through this same desert for nearly forty years, I can attest to the accuracy of Van Dyke's physical descriptions and, perhaps more importantly, I can note that I've found here both the magic and the majesty which he so ably describes. Still, this isn't a book for everyone. Those who prefer the gleam of glass towers and the roar of jet planes to flaming sunsets and yapping coyotes, save your money. Van Dyke wrote, "Not in the spots of earth where plenty breeds indolence do we meet with the perfected type. It is in the land of adversity ... that finally emerges the highest manifestation."

Customer Reviews:

Great.......2001-01-19

Library Journal's review of this guide: "Combining encyclopedic coverage of destinations with loads of practical information and atlas-type maps, the series illuminates the wonders of nature but emphasizes the peculiarity of a place's people and their folklore."

Book Description

Ben is dealing with just about the hardest thing you can think of. His girlfriend Marly has died. A life that was once filled with love and vibrancy is now gray and meaningless.

When Marly and several other ghosts come back to haunt him on Valentine's Day, Ben takes a painful journey through Valentine's Days past, present, and future, and is forced to acknowledge that his current state of agony is not only distancing him from his friends but dishonoring the memory of Marly.

Two of children's literature's brightest stars have teamed up to provide both a compelling novel about loss and an exciting and modern twist on an enduring Dickens classic.

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A Modern, Teenage Take On Dickens's Christmas Carol.......2006-02-02

As a fan of David Levithan's BOY MEETS BOY, I was anxiously awaiting the chance to read his latest, MARLY'S GHOST. Anyone familiar with Levithan's work knows what I'm talking about when I say that he wields words with the precision of a surgeon utilizing a scalpel. He can put you in someone else's head and make you feel like you've always been there. He can lift you up or shoot you down with a carefully crafted sentence. I'm happy to report that his most recent book does not disappoint.

As the title suggests, MARLY'S GHOST is a modern, teenage take on Charles Dickens's A CHRISTMAS CAROL. The twist is that it's set around Valentine's Day, not Christmas. Ben and Marly are the perfect couple at their high school. When Marly gets ill and dies, Ben is convinced he'll never recover from the loss. Just as his counterpart, Ebenezer Scrooge, turns from Christmas, Ben turns from love. He spurns his best friend, Fred, refusing to join him for their annual anti-Valentine's Day party. He verbally abuses a gay couple (amusingly bearing the names Tiny and Tim) who attempt to get Ben to buy a Valentine's Day flower. And he falls deeper and deeper into a brooding depression that takes him farther and farther from the people who care most for him.

Even a passing familiarity with the Dickens story tells you what happens next. Marly's ghost visits Ben (her "chain" is a mammoth charm bracelet she wore in life, which Ben now unknowingly uses to tie her to this world) and announces that three spirits will visit him so that he might remember the meaning of love. Ben is then taken on a tour of love from the past, the present and the future, and (I don't think it's spoiling much to reveal) he returns to his life a changed man.

But don't dismiss this as a simple parody or pastiche of Dickens. Levithan very thoughtfully crafts his characters, granting them heart and heartache. You sympathize with Ben's loss from the very beginning in a way you never felt for Dickens's Scrooge. The sundering of Tiny Tim into two boys who are very much in love is a smart and fascinating move.

The only criticism I would raise is the anachronistic language that mimics Dickens's original dialogue but seems very out of place in this modern story. True, other classic works (such as Shakespeare) have been set in modern times while retaining the original language and still maintained their integrity. But Levithan jumps back and forth from the Dickensian discourse to contemporary teen speak, which is a bit distracting. However, this minor complaint should not deter anyone from this very earnest and touching story.

--- Reviewed by Brian Farrey

may be better than the original..........2005-12-23

"I repeated it now- I love you. I love you. Please. I love you. Then it came- that one small gasp. We waited for the next one, but there was no next one. You expect death to bring some new form of punctuation, but there it is: one small gasp. Period."

Ben is a 16 year old man grieving the loss of his first love, Marly, a woman who died from cancer. He was with her until the end, and those moments leading up to her death still haunt him, so much so that he feel that he can't go on with her months after her death. His loss wells to such an intensity it causes him to lash out to his family, friends, and even strangers with heated animosity. On the day before Valentine's day he even tells off a couple by the names of Tiny and Tim (the school's only gay couple) proclaiming that love is pointless and other such nonsense. It is obvious that his depression has taken a toll on him.

That evening in a moment of sheer loneliness he is visited by the ghost of Marly, who tells him his ties on him are weighing her down in the afterlife and that he has to move on. He admits he wants to die, so she tells him that he will be visited by three ghosts over the next few nights... if the story sounds familiar that's because it is a retelling of Charles Dickens' "A Christmas Carol"... only set in contemporary times and with a Valentine's day theme instead.

It is true that Charles Dickens wrote "A Christmas Carol", but to me it feels as if it were meant purely as a study for David Levithan to use to pen this book. Now, I freely admit I have never been the biggest fan of Dickens' style of writing but I have read "A Christmas Carol" (in class, I wouldn't have finished it had I not been forced to). So I do know the story. However, it feels that Levithan's retelling is so much more suitable than Dickens' ever was. We really do feel Ben's anguish whereas before it was difficult to sympathize with Scrooge. His heartache seems far more definite than Scrooge's ever was, and the character is more likeable, even is he is difficult, at times.

I enjoyed this retelling, short as it was. It feels more fleshed out, somehow... perhaps because Ben's revelations come out of the fact that he was near suicidal at times, and that grief just reached out to me. The end seemed rushed, however that did not take away from the story. This was a pleasant read.

Love May Be Humbug...But 'Marly's Ghost' Is Quite the Opposite.......2005-12-08

Sixteen-year-old Ebeneezer "Ben" Scrooge, was always a die-hard Valentine's Day fan. Bringing his girlfriend, Marly, flowers and chocolates. But all that changes when Marly dies from a brain tumor. After three-years together, Ben doesn't feel that he can go on, and is angered by the fact that everyone around him is living their life as if nothing tragic has happened. What angers him even more is Valentine's Day. Suddenly, Ben wonders how a stupid, commercialized holiday can mean so much to people. So he boycotts it. But Marly's spirit obviously isn't going to allow Ben to ruin this holiday, or go on living angry. For on the eve of Valentine's Day, Marly's ghost arrives, bringing along several other ghosts that will haunt him within a 24-hour period - the Ghost of Love Past, the Ghost of Love Present, and the Ghost of Love Future - that will show Ben that the way he's been acting is doing nothing more than dishonoring Marly's memory, and making him...a scrooge.

Charles Dickens' A CHRISTMAS CAROL has been one of my favorite books since I was very young. So when I heard about David Levithan's MARLY'S GHOST, I didn't think that it could compare. I was wrong. Levithan's MARLY'S GHOST is a wonderful "remix" of the story A CHRISTMAS CAROL, and easily brings Dickens' ideas into a modern day scene that will leave readers enchanted. The storyline is sad - as is A CHRISTMAS CAROL - and the descriptions of Marly's sickness bring to mind scenes from Nicholas Sparks' A WALK TO REMEMBER, yet end on a happy note - as did Sparks' effort. Levithan has created characters that embody updated versions of all of Dickens' previous characters, even including a modern day Tiny Tim - that is actually two gay freshman named Tiny and Tim. The storyline, on its own, is wonderful, and keeps the reader turning the pages until the very end, while Brian Selznick's illustrations bring the spirit of A CHRISTMAS CAROL to life. An inspiring, emotion-charged story, that will warm the hearts of all readers - even the biggest cynics about love.

Erika Sorocco
Book Review Columnist for The Community Bugle Newspaper

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Experience the Lure of Music

Ingledove
Marly Youmans
Manufacturer: Firebird
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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The Curse of the Raven Mocker

ASIN: 0142407046

Book Description

Ingledove and Lang's mother is dead, and their childhood home in Appalachia has been drowned under a dammed lake. When the two siblings journey by boat to visit her grave, they find an inscription added to her headstone: A daughter of Adantis. Lured by a glorious music that pervades the air, Lang wants to go deeper into the mountains. He and Ingledove cross the border into the hidden kingdom of Adantis, where the ways of the Cherokee and the settlers from the Old World have fused to make a wild new world. There, the bewitching fairy beauty and ancient evil of the singer nearly destroys Lang. To save him, Ingledove must find the man known to Adantans as the Master of Witchmasters, and draw on strength she isn't sure she has. . . .

Customer Reviews:

Experience the Lure of Music.......2005-09-04

Ingledove and her brother, Lang, set out to visit the grave of their mother in the mountains of the Carolinas. However, on their journey, Lang is enchanted by a mysterious music, resulting in complications that draw the children deeper and deeper into the land of Adantis. As I read Ingledove, I found myself connecting with Lang, feeling the lure of music, for me, the magical music of Youman's writing. Attempting to put the book down, I found that I, too, was hooked, needing to learn more about Adantis, the land of the Hidden People.

As with The Curse of the Raven Mocker, her first book about Adantis, Youman's writing is rich with description. Her books not only advance the plot, but they invite the poet in the reader to stop and dwell in the beauty of language.

As a middle school teacher, I'm particularly pleased to discover Marly Youman, for really fine writing is in short supply for this age reader. However, I'll not concede her writing solely to the young adult reader. This magical book will find its place on my bookshelf alongside The Curse of the Raven Mocker to be taken down and read again and again.

Book Description

Ladybird beetles are typical predators that feed on a wide range of insect prey, and have been used extensively in the biocontrol of insect pests. This volume explores basic ladybird biology, in particular, their close association with prey and its effect on their rate of development and body size. The author uses optimal foraging theory, field observations, and laboratory experiments to illustrate how ladybird larvae maximize their rate of energy intake, and ladybird adults their fitness. The interdependence of these life history parameters is then used to develop a simple predator-prey model that, combined with an analysis of the literature, highlights the specific attributes of potentially successful biocontrol agents for all those interested in predator-prey dynamics.

Book Description

Significant advances in genomics have provided a plethora of previously unknown molecular targets, and with it the opportunity to discover and develop a variety of important new medicines. The timely and successful exploitation of these targets, however, has presented scientists with an appreciable challenge. New, efficient lead generation paradigms, resulting in increasingly large and diverse chemical libraries, have driven the technological advances needed to support their design, characterization and analysis. Bringing together contributions from international experts in both industry and academia, "Medicinal Chemistry into the Millennium" reports on a number of important developments. Subjects covered include many of the newer supporting technologies and the specific challenges posed by the need to predict bioavailability characteristics. The application of these techniques in the exploitation of targets as diverse as grown factors, proteases, 7-transmembrane receptors, ion intracellular signalling processes, is also discussed. The topics covered in this book are particularly relevant to scientists in the pharmaceutical industry and other industries dependent on the discovery of biologically active molecules.

Book Description

This unified volume is a collection of invited articles on topics presented at the Symposium on Systems, Control, and Networks, held in Berkeley June 5–7, 2005, in honor of Pravin Varaiya on his 65 ^th birthday. Varaiya is an eminent faculty member of the University of California at Berkeley, widely known for his seminal contributions in areas as diverse as stochastic systems, nonlinear and hybrid systems, distributed systems, communication networks, transportation systems, power networks, economics, optimization, and systems education.

The chapters include recent results and surveys by leading experts on topics that reflect many of the research and teaching interests of Varaiya, including:

* hybrid systems and applications

* communication, wireless, and sensor networks

* transportation systems

* stochastic systems

* systems education

Advances in Control, Communication Networks, and Transportation Systems will serve as an excellent resource for practicing and research engineers, applied mathematicians, and graduate students working in such areas as communication networks, sensor networks, transportation systems, control theory, hybrid systems, and applications.

Contributors: J.S. Baras * V.S. Borkar * M.H.A. Davis * A.R. Deshpande * D. Garg * M. Gastpar * A.J. Goldsmith * R. Gupta * R. Horowitz * I. Hwang * T. Jiang * R. Johari * A. Kotsialos * A.B. Kurzhanski * E.A. Lee * X. Liu * H.S. Mahmassani * D. Manjunath * B. Mishra * L. Muñoz * M. Papageorgiou * C. Piazza * S.E. Shladover * D.M. Stipanovic * T.M. Stoenescu * X. Sun * D. Teneketzis * C.J. Tomlin * J.N. Tsitsiklis * J. Walrand * X. Zhou

Amazon.com

At the time of his death in 1992, David Wojnarowicz was one of the most vital and important names in the New York arts scene. His openness about his HIV status and engagement in public debates about health care and AIDS policy placed his highly political and determinedly provocative art and writing in a new context. In the Shadow of the American Dream is a collection of journal entries from 1971 (when he was 17) to his death. As he alternates between living on New York's Lower East Side and hitchhiking around the country, we can see the evolution of the artist not only as a young man beginning to understand his life and the world but as a social and political critic.

Wojnarowicz's life was difficult--from his unhappy childhood and adolescence to periods of homelessness and ostracism, coupled with overwhelming despair and loneliness. Yet, ultimately, In the Shadow of the American Dream is a joyful book. We see how Wojnarowicz's art became his salvation--even in the face of AIDS--and his life finally opened and expanded to be able to include other people in ways that never happened before, including a close friendship with photographer Peter Hujar. Wojnarowicz also presents us with insightful commentary on the New York arts scene and the enormous effect AIDS had on gay male life and culture. While In the Shadow of the American Dream is a moving, sometimes frightening self-examination of the life of a gay artist, it is also testimony to how mainstream America treats not only its artists but its radicals and visionaries. --Michael Bronski

Book Description

Few artists have captured the emotional, sexual, and political chaos of modern urban life as perceptively as David Wojnarowicz, whom Out magazine has called "an acute observer of the unmapped region surrounding his heart and one of the best writers of his generation." In journal entries from age seventeen until his AIDS-related death at thirty-seven, In the Shadow of the American Dream chronicles the life of a radical artist who unequivocally defied bigotry even as he became a target for the right wing. It tells the story of Wojnarowicz's creative birth, from publishing his first photographs and writing what would become The Waterfront Journals to completing his tour de force, Close to the Knives, at the height of his fame. In the Shadow of the American Dream is finally a record of the private Wojnarowicz, falling in love, exploring erotic possibilities on the Hudson River piers, becoming overwhelmed by the demands of survival, and searching for the pleasure and freedom he believed one could live on.

Customer Reviews:

Required Reading.......2006-12-02

Despite the fact that I am already reading 3 other books concurrently, I am revisiting David Wojnarowicz for the umpteenth time. I simply can't stay away. I've found that there is no amount of time that can pass where I will have found that I'm still not in love with the man. And not just because I'm queer but because I am really, really, really in love with his heart and the everlasting life of his spirit. No other writer has touched me so deeply or influeneced the reconstruction of my ethics as him. I could only dream of living a life so passionately and generously, a life which is evidenced by this book.

Reflections.......2000-05-23

It's indeed strange to read about oneself after 30 years-to relive those moments-to know for the first time that you actually helped someone you loved and to wonder why you did not express your feelings more directly in your personal relationship that lasted sporadically for those many years. David's years from age 14 to 21 or 22.

The life and times of a gay writer and artist........1999-04-02

These journals of David Worjnarowicz are an account of the famed writer, artist. They begin when he is seveteen years old and end at the time of his death. The beginning explains some of his troubled background: his alcholoic father, his street hustlering in Times Square at a young age, and so on. The entries are most appealing when David speaks about his relationship with other men, especially about his love affair with Jean-Pierre, a man he meet while in Paris. These entries are fluid, full of a joy that one is in touch with when in the throes of love. Eventually David leaves Paris and is back in New York. It is this particular time and place, New York in the late 1970's to early 80's do we see an extreme sexual behavior of many gay men. This is seen not only with this work, but in the photos of Mapplethrope, and many accounts of gay men that have lived in this time period. The other entries concerning his HIV status and all the myriad emotions concerned with the fatal disease are rivetting. The diaries are, at times, disjointed, and some of the early entries I feel really don't need to be within the book. However, the book reveals a man of true in insight, an artist who felt everything, and wrote it all down word for word. A very good book!!!

Powerfully Poetic/Disturbingly Realistic.......1999-03-30

Thank you, Amy Scholder (editor and introductionalist). I have just read a review of "In the Shadow of the American Dream" in one of Seattle's weekly newspapers, and I am so glad that I did. Immediately, my curiosity was peaked. Not having ever heard of David Wojnarowicz, I am now a devoted fan of his work. As an artist and a writer, David Wojnarowicz speaks with a rare truthfulness unlike any other writer that I have read in recent times. Wojnarowicz speaks of a world not many people are aware of, the world of "seedy Times Square" where he spent his youth hustling, desperately trying to make a living by selling his body to total strangers; the world of a gay activist, vehemently seeking to make the world a more tolerant place for all; the world of a Person Living with AIDS, conciously, creatively expressing his pain, his hurt and his sadness, but not without hope. "In the Shadow of the American Dream" is a collection of excerpts of the 31 diaries that Wojnarowicz spent his life writing, from the age of 17 until he died of AIDS in 1992. With writing such as "I saw a face in a passing car that looked like someone I once knew. It's like that when you move on to other places in your life--memories of faces fading like thin ice sheets in winter sidewalk puddles, they melt, become only a part of the water so you can't separate them ever again, but they do remain there." Wow! Like passing an automobile accident, you don't want to look (or read) but then you can't put it down. I highly recommend "In the Shadow of the American Dream" to anyone who is slightly interested in what artistry, activism, creativity, and hope really means.

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