|
Desert Places | 
 enlarge | Author: Robyn Davidson
Publisher: Viking Adult
Category: Book
List Price: $23.95
Buy Used: $0.01
You Save: $23.94 (100%)
New (12) Used (57) Collectible (1) from $0.01
Rating:  11 reviews
Sales Rank: 917616
Media: Hardcover
Edition: 1st
Pages: 288
Number Of Items: 1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.4
Dimensions (in): 10.9 x 8.4 x 0.2
ISBN: 0670840777
Dewey Decimal Number: 954.4
EAN: 9780670840779
ASIN: 0670840777
Publication Date: November 1, 1996
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
| |
| Also Available In:
|
| Similar Items:
|
| Editorial Reviews:
Amazon.com Review
As Robyn Davidson writes in Desert Places, the Thar, a 230,000-square-mile expanse of formidably dry country in northwestern India, is a harsh land of "granite outcroppings, naked but for a few gullies of monsoon forest or a single, white-painted elephant stationed on a summit eternally surveying the farmlands below." Among the people who populate the Thar are the Rabari, who are quickly becoming modernized and dispossessed, wanderers on the fringes of urban civilization, people who are at home nowhere. After making a false start as a book of adventure travel, Desert Places becomes a work of cultural ecology and of amateur anthropology, reporting on the final days of a traditional nomadic culture once utterly at home in an inhospitable land.
Product Description
The author of Tracks provides a fascinating account of a year spent in northwest India with a wandering tribe called the Rabari, whose traditional migratory route has largely disappeared because of new political boundaries, atomic test sites, and irrigation. 25,000 first printing.
|
| Customer Reviews: Read 6 more reviews...
 A tough book March 21, 2000
saliero (NSW Australia)
7 out of 8 found this review helpful
Ms Davidson is a tough woman, who for some reason sees the need to put herself into the most excrutiatingly isolating situations.I found the book fascinating, and was overwhelmed at times by the sense of being so alone within a country where there is the most confronting closeness of human being with human being. This is an India I know i would not be equipped to deal with. i was a bit critical of her at first that she always had her friend, the wealthy Indian upon whom to fall back, but I doubt whether she would have been able to approach completion of her task without him. The need to retreat every so often from the sheer hard grind of trying to accomplish the task she set herself. I know i would have had to find a 5 star, deep-bath resort long before Davidson welcomed the comfort of a barely basic hotel room with hot water! The lives of the rabbari as presented to us through Davidson's eyes (and god knows they are hardly likely to be presented any other way!) is fascinating. I know the attraction of the 'exotic' can lead to patronising people, but davidson never does that, and does not allow her (dare i suggest, midle class, western, educated?) readership to get too comfortable with their own views of the world.
 LIVING BY THE MYTH July 10, 2000
NDADIA (MUMBAI,INDIA)
7 out of 10 found this review helpful
THIS BOOK IS A SPELLBINDING ACCOUNT OF THE ADVETURES OF ROBYN OF HER THAR DESERT SOJOURN. HER OBSERVATIONS ARE CHARACTERISED BY AN AMAZING CANDOUR AND DEPTH. SHE HAS ALSO EXPLORED DEEPLY THE PSYCHE OF THE PEOPLE OF THAR WHO ARE LIVING BY THE MYTH OF BEING CREATED BY SHIVA. THERE ARE STORIES ALSO TO THE ORIGINATION OF THIS NOMADIC RABARI TRIBE.
Unparalleled March 28, 2000
6 out of 7 found this review helpful
This is the most honest, earthy, exhilarating account of an expedition that I've ever come upon. In a sense, I've seen more of Rajasthan through Davidson's story than during my own brief treck into the Thar.
ONE TERRIFIC READ--A REAL PAGE TURNER July 13, 2000
Sundareshvar (Santa Barbara, California USA)
6 out of 10 found this review helpful
'Nuff said. Ms. Davidson is a terrific adventurer and an astonishingly good writer.
ex-pat review August 31, 2002
3 out of 3 found this review helpful
I spent 2 years in India in the late 90s and this book began making its' way around the ex-pat crowd in the middle of my stay there. The word of mouth reviews were universally positive. While most of us didn't go through the extreme day to day challenges Ms. Davidson put herself through, we went through enough to completely empathize with her plights. Her eloquent descriptions of the often unending and unyielding discomforts imposed by India while, at the same time, it also offered the visitor delights and experiences you can't find anywhere else was simply spot-on. I recommend this book to anyone who truly enjoys travels and the self-reflection afforded through trips that take them out of their comfort zones.
|
|
|
|
| |
