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yoshi5's review against another edition
3.0
Wasn't expecting vignettes, was expecting a more cohesive book. This set me off on the wrong start and I found it difficult to get through. Despite this, lots of insightful passages.
stevem0214's review against another edition
5.0
"The origin of mountain streams is like the origin of tears, patent to the understanding but mysterious to the sense." Thus is the prose in the beautiful little book. Only 76 pages long, but strong in beauty of the American southwest. More about flora and fauna than the people who live there, but an education in the hidden beauty in this dry arid land. Written in 1903 but very telling about the destruction man was doing even 120 years ago. "It is the economy of nature, but with it all there is not sufficient account taken of the works of man. There is no scavenger that eats tin cans, and no wild thing leaves a like disfigurement on the forest floor."
liberrydude's review against another edition
3.0
A short book of essays about life in the desert and the Eastern Sierras of California at the turn of the 20th Century. Austin is a female John Muir. Be ready for botany lessons and interesting observations on Native American culture as well as place and nature. Definitely want to read more of her works. She died in Santa Fe, New Mexico.
moveslikewind's review against another edition
adventurous
inspiring
reflective
relaxing
medium-paced
4.0
triscuit807's review against another edition
4.0
Not the travelogue that I was hoping it was, but it fits the category "read a nonfiction book" (PopSugar 2015) for my2016 Reading Challenge. Austin published this in 1903 and it's a lyrical paean to the American West, specifically the sparsely settled dry lands. The book is actually a series of interrelated essays. My favorites were the ones about several Native Americans know to her: a Shoshone medicine man and a Paiute basket weaver.
kathleenitpdx's review against another edition
3.0
Mary Austin lived in the Owens Valley of California in the early years of the 20th century. This book is essays about the flora, fauna, and weather of the area. This was a time when Indians still clung to the ways of the land; miners still looked for veins and pockets; stages still connected towns to railroads; and feuds were sometimes settled with guns.
The book is a little challenging to read. Austen uses an archaic, formal sentence structure and some words that seem to be unique to her. But it is easy to come toa love of the land of little rain and its denizens through Austen's words.
The book is a little challenging to read. Austen uses an archaic, formal sentence structure and some words that seem to be unique to her. But it is easy to come toa love of the land of little rain and its denizens through Austen's words.
loppear's review against another edition
3.0
Naturalist admiration of the eastern Mid-Sierras, highlight essays are Water Trails of the Ceriso, The Mesa Trail, and Nurslings of the Sky.
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