incredible read - captures the awe and experience of being in the canyons and desert in the southwest with prose that reads like poetry ( )

I've only recently become interested in the history and prehistory of the American Southwest, and the first real book I read about it was the author's House of Rain, which was superb. This book finds him more in the here and now, and I have to admit I'm not particularly interested in rock climbing--but the writing here is his very best. I'd also recommend Apocalyptic Planet and Atlas of a Lost World. Aside from the writing the best thing about the book is that he's right there in the places he writes about, often hanging by the skin of his teeth. And oh yes, he has a sense of humor. ( )

I'm not sure why I am just being introduced to Craig Childs, but this is my kind of book. It wasn't five minutes from the time I finished this book until I had ordered three others he had written. Childs walks, often alone, hundreds of miles a year in the most inaccessible deserts in the Southwest United States. He is an expert on finding water where people think none exists, and on the people who have lived in these God-forsaken desert environments for thousands of years. Childs is also an eloquent and thoughtful writer, whose love for and understanding of place is on a par with Barry Lopez or John McPhee.

Childs describes climbing a fin of rock in a canyon until he is suddenly aware that the slightest slip or misplacement of a foot will cause him to fall 150 feet onto boulders. He becomes incapable of movement. His predicament caused me to vividly recall a similar situation in my own climbing life 40 years ago. I could almost taste the fear again. He writes:

"But the fear came back, barging drunkenly into my head, knocking things over. My fingers tightened against the rock. I closed my eyes again. This will not do, I thought. I have to be solid. So I went ahead and killed myself. I got rid of my mind, smashing it into the rock. It was a swift act. Once that was out of the way, I opened my eyes again and took a second to review the next eight feet below me. I removed my hands from the rock and fell."

This is what I did, too. I killed myself. Came to terms with my death and made the move that saved me. But the experience scared me too much to ever get on the rock again. I think the experience gave Childs a deeper appreciation and respect for the desert rock and canyons. I am happy he wasn't scared off the rocks. We wouldn't have had this beautiful and compelling book to read if he had been. ( )

In this memoir, naturalist Craig Childs describes a series of hiking trips into remote canyon and desert landscapes of the Southwest U.S. and on into Mexico searching for evidence of Ancient Puebloan peoples. Childs writes about American landscape and nature, particularly the fierce and forbidding arid terrains, and conveys a vivid sense of their essence. Read an article and listen to an NPR interview at Soul of Nowhere http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=913651 Also read Author says We’ll ’Match the Scenery’ whether We Like It or Not http://www.hcn.org/issues/244/13743 from High Country News. (lj) ( )

Childs and his wife Regan Choi have survival walked thousands of miles in the arid southwest and his beautiful prose expresses a zen like relationship with the deserts and the ruins and sites of the ancients encountered that no one has seen.