A Way To The Desert

In the Bible the desert is a place of punishment and discipline, but also of blessing and love's reawakening. Both Jesus and the people of Israel before him spent time in the desert, learning what it meant to be chosen and loved and holy. Yet while the people of the Exodus frequently got it wrong, providing some cautionary tales for us to learn from, Jesus himself constantly got it right, offering a perfect model for us to follow. In The Way of the Desert Andrew Watson takes us on a Lenten journey from Ash Wednesday to Easter Day, from the parting of the Red Sea to Israel's entry into the promised land. Combining these Old Testament scriptures with insight from the Gospels, he reveals the continuing relevance of the exodus story to all who would seek to follow Christ. The author writes: 'It became the must-have accessory among Christian young people in the 1990s: a rubber wristband cryptically inscribed with the letters WWJD. A hundred years earlier, Charles Sheldon, American pastor and Christian Socialist, had written a book entitled What Would Jesus Do? and the initials on the wristbands picked up just the same question. Whatever situations we face in life - whatever decisions we are called upon to make - the issue of WWJD is vital for the Christian disciple. Jesus' call, after all, is to "follow me."' 'As a church leader at the time when WWJD wristbands were selling by the truckload, I was therefore positive about this simple summons to Christian thinking and discipleship. My only reservation was that WWJD seemed to beg a prior question, and one on which our young people appeared increasingly hazy, namely "What Did Jesus Do?" Short of marketing my own range of WDJD wristbands there were limited means to get my message across, though I mentioned it in the odd sermon at the time. But the danger of asking speculative questions about Jesus without rooting them clearly in the Jesus of the Gospels is a real one. How easy to construct a Jesus of my own making, a pocket Jesus (or idol, to use the Bible's own term), who conveniently seems to share my views on politics, religion, money and relationships, without making me feel uncomfortable or challenged at all!' 'As we approach Lent, the question "What did Jesus do?" yields some interesting answers, for the 40 days of Lent reflect the period that Jesus spent in the wilderness following his baptism and before the start of his public ministry. It's a period briefly mentioned by the Gospel writer Mark (1:12 - 13) and described in greater detail by fellow evangelists Matthew (4:1 - 11) and Luke (4:1 - 13). So what did Jesus do in what we could call the first Lent?'

The greatest danger to America’s peace and prosperity, notes leading Middle East policy analyst Kenneth M. Pollack, lies in the political repression, economic stagnation, and cultural conflict running rampant in Arab and Muslim nations. Pollack asserts that we must continue to make the Middle East a priority in our policy, but in a humbler, more realistic, and more cohesive way. In his long-term strategy, Pollack suggests that America engage directly with the governments of the Middle East and indirectly with its people by means of cultural exchange, commerce, and other “soft” approaches. He carefully examines each of the region’s most contested areas, as well as the Israeli-Palestinian peace process, and explains how the United States can address each through mutually reinforcing policies. At a time when the nation is facing critical decisions about our continued presence in Iraq and Afghanistan, A Path Out of the Desert is guaranteed to stimulate debate about America’s humanitarian, diplomatic, and military involvement in the Middle East.

A counting book in rhyme presents various desert animals and their children, from a mother horned toad and her little toadie one to a mom tarantula and her little spiders ten. Numerals are hidden in each illustration.

Layering climate science, mythologies, nature writing, and personal experiences, this New York Times Notable Book presents a stunning reckoning with our current moment and with the literal and figurative end of time. Desert Notebooks examines how the unprecedented pace of destruction to our environment and an increasingly unstable geopolitical landscape have led us to the brink of a calamity greater than any humankind has confronted before. As inhabitants of the Anthropocene, what might some of our own histories tell us about how to confront apocalypse? And how might the geologies and ecologies of desert spaces inform how we see and act toward time—the pasts we have erased and paved over, this anxious present, the future we have no choice but to build? Ehrenreich draws on the stark grandeur of the desert to ask how we might reckon with the uncertainty that surrounds us and fight off the crises that have already begun. In the canyons and oases of the Mojave and in Las Vegas’s neon apocalypse, Ehrenreich finds beauty, and even hope, surging up in the most unlikely places, from the most barren rocks, and the apparent emptiness of the sky. Desert Notebooks is a vital and necessary chronicle of our past and our present—unflinching, urgent—yet timeless and profound.

The cult-y pocket-size field guide to the strange and intriguing secrets of the Mojave—its myths and legends, outcasts and oddballs, flora, fauna, and UFOs—becomes the definitive, oracular book of the desert For the past five years, Desert Oracle has existed as a quasi-mythical, quarterly periodical available to the very determined only by subscription or at the odd desert-town gas station or the occasional hipster boutique, its canary-yellow-covered, forty-four-page issues handed from one curious desert zealot to the next, word spreading faster than the printers could keep up with. It became a radio show, a podcast, a live performance. Now, for the first time—and including both classic and new, never-before-seen revelations—Desert Oracle has been bound between two hard covers and is available to you. Straight out of Joshua Tree, California, Desert Oracle is “The Voice of the Desert”: a field guide to the strange tales, singing sand dunes, sagebrush trails, artists and aliens, authors and oddballs, ghost towns and modern legends, musicians and mystics, scorpions and saguaros, out there in the sand. Desert Oracle is your companion at a roadside diner, around a campfire, in your tent or cabin (or high-rise apartment or suburban living room) as the wind and the coyotes howl outside at night. From journal entries of long-deceased adventurers to stray railroad ad copy, and musings on everything from desert flora, rumored cryptid sightings, and other paranormal phenomena, Ken Layne's Desert Oracle collects the weird and the wonderful of the American Southwest into a single, essential volume.

One girl sets out on a journey across the treacherous Arizona desert to rescue a young pilot stranded after a plane crash in this gripping story of survival, friendship, and rescue from a bestselling and award-winning author. ​ Twelve-year-old Jolene spends every day she can at the library watching her favorite livestream: The Desert Aviator, where twelve-year-old "Addie Earhart" shares her adventures flying an ultralight plane over the desert. While watching this daring girl fly through the sky, Jolene can dream of what it would be like to fly with her, far away from her own troubled home life where her mother struggles with a narcotic addiction. And Addie, who is grieving the loss of her father, finds solace in her online conversations with Jolene, her biggest--and only--fan. Then, one day, it all goes wrong: Addie's engine abruptly stops, and Jolene watches in helpless horror as the ultralight plummets to the ground and the video goes dark. Jolene knows that Addie won't survive long in the extreme summer desert heat. With no one to turn to for help and armed with only a hand-drawn map and a stolen cell phone, it's up to Jolene to find a way to save the Desert Aviator. Packed with adventure and heart, Across the Desert speaks to the resilience, hope, and strength within each of us. Don't miss Dusti Bowling's new novel, Dust, available for preorder now.

Looks at the history and uses of plants of the Sonoran Desert, including creosote, palm trees, mesquite, organpipe cactus, amaranth, chiles, and Devil's claw