A Desert Bestiary: Folklore, Literature, and Ecological Thought from the World's Dry Places [Paperback]

Gregory McNamee (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: January 1997

Following the model of the medieval Latin bestiaries, Gregory McNamee has written a book at once naturalistic, folkloristic, and literary, made up of short essays on forty-three animals of the world’s deserts. These essays discuss the creatures as they are and as they are imagined, and bring their natural lives and histories vividly to the page.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

From the ant to the wolf, 45 animals receive brief but brightly engaging consideration in Gregory McNamee's A Desert Bestiary: Folklore, Literature, and Ecological Thought from the World's Dry Places. With wit and erudition, McNamee finds much that's notable about beasts as unlikely as the hedgehog and the dingo; and with so many of these 45 animals in peril, his fine book serves to advocate preservation as well as to praise. Illustrations not seen by PW.

Copyright 1996 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

About the Author

Gregory McNamee is the author or volume editor of ten books, including "The Sierra Club Desert Reader" and "Gila: The Life and Death of an American River" (for which he received the Arizona Library Association’s Adult Author Award for 1995). His environmental and literary journalism has appeared in "The Nation," "Summit," "Outside," "Orion Nature Quarterly," "Audubon," "The Bloomsbury Review," and other major journals. He lives in Tucson.

Product Details

• Paperback: 166 pages
• Publisher: Johnson Books; First edition edition (January 1997)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1555661769
• ISBN-13: 978-1555661762
• Product Dimensions: 8.3 x 5.6 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 8.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,763,936 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Gregory McNamee is a writer, journalist, editor, photographer, and consultant in publishing, film, and other media. He is the author or title-page editor of thirty books, including Careers in Renewable Energy: Get a Green Energy Job; Moveable Feasts: The History, Science, and Lore of Food; and Otero Mesa: Preserving America's Wildest Grassland; and of more than three thousand periodical pieces. He is a consultant, contributor, and contributing editor to the Encyclopaedia Britannica and its blog. He is also a regular reviewer for Kirkus Reviews and a contributing editor to The Bloomsbury Review.