Great God Pan: Salt Desert Tales (Great God Pan Number Fourteen) [Paperback]

Erik R. Bluhm (Author), Mark Sundeen (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: January 11, 2001

Vast expanses of Utah — its entire northwest quadrant, specifically - are barren, waterless, windblown, salt-caked, too hot or too cold, God-forsaken and just generally unfit for human habitation. If not for the advent of rocket bombs, toxic waste, and casinos, this desert of Deseret might still be left to the coyotes.

It's a land so vast, unpopulated and far-removed that the most you'll hear about it is from a book like this one.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"...has been giving us a good long look at the other side of California history for several years." -- The Aesthetic, January 1, 2001

About the Author

Erik R. Bluhm is the founder of Great God Pan magazine, the Champion of Californiana. He is also a regular contributor to Big Brother magazine and is currently studying Western history at California State University Northridge.

Mark Sundeen lives in Moab, Utah. He is the co-founder of Great God Pan magazine and the author of Car Camping - The Book of Desert Adventures (HarperCollins, 1999). He is currently researching a book about bullfighting.

Product Details

• Paperback: 159 pages
• Publisher: Great God Pan (January 11, 2001)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0922915261
• ISBN-13: 978-0922915262
• Product Dimensions: 8.8 x 5.9 x 0.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 8 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #3,566,672 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Mark Sundeen is the author of The Man Who Quit Money, to be published by Riverhead/Penguin in early 2012. His nonfiction has appeared in the New York Times Magazine, Outside, National Geographic Adventure, the Believer, and elsewhere. His previous books are Car Camping (HarperCollins, 2000), The Making of Toro (Simon & Schuster, 2003), and North By Northwestern (St. Martin's, 2010, co-written with Sig Hansen), which was a New York Times and Wall Street Journal bestseller. He has taught fiction and nonfiction at the MFA creative writing programs at the University of New Mexico and Western Connecticut State University, as well as the Taos Summer Writers' Conference. He lives in Montana and Utah.r. Learn more at www.marksundeen.com

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Salt Desert Tales of Genius, August 23, 2001

By 

Paul C (Hollywood, CA USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Great God Pan: Salt Desert Tales (Great God Pan Number Fourteen) (Paperback)

"Great God Pan - Salt Desert Tales" sandblasts off layers of smog and grime that have been clotting up the West for the past hundred years. This is a history that has been abandoned or neglected, and when one delves into these tales a clear appreciation of this idiosyncratic region takes hold. These stories are not mere anecdotal tales, but stories with unlikely heroes, impossible eccentrics, and visionary madmen. The best part is that all of this is true. The writers of this book have gone to considerable lengths to find histories of the West that step outside of the traditional homage to the individualist, Western Expansionist prototype.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Salty as a Desert in Deseret!, April 6, 2001

By 

J. Vanek - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Great God Pan: Salt Desert Tales (Great God Pan Number Fourteen) (Paperback)

Salt Desert Tales is a bang-up collection of white hot adventure tales, history and culture. This time the Pan-Men have chosen the dusty burgs of Mormon Country to do their research, and friend the result is truiumphant! I read it cover to cover in one sitting. They capture the feel of the Western USA from the perspective of Western Americans. Reading the story about Nevada made me think of growing up in Yakima, Washington where high schools gyms are just as likely to have a quincinera happening, as they are a basketball game.

Now that Bob Ludlum's passed on you'll never have to look further than the Bluhm/Sundeen braintrust for highest quality, page-turnin' wild times.

Other recommendations include: Car Camping, all the back issues of Great God Pan, Cometbus, the WPA State books.. and any music by Oxes and Lightning Bolt you can find.