Voices Of The Desert

In exquisite prose, Pinon tells the story of "One Thousand and One Nights" told from Scheherezade's perspective, giving readers the full depth and breadth of her jealousies and resentments, her longings and desires.

On the hottest summer afternoons when desert creatures look for shade and stay close to the earth and keep their voices low I sit high on a cactus and fling my loud ringing trill out to the sun... So sings the Cactus Wren, one of the ten desert creatures that speaks for itself in the evocative and lyrical verses of Desert Voices. In both text and illustration, Desert Voices conveys a message of spirit and courage from the shy and quiet creatures of the beautiful desert land.

‘Between Friday and Monday we never slept at all. Everyone’s face was one mass of sand ... The guns were so hot, all the paint had gone’ Bombardier Ray Ellis Had the Allies lost in North Africa, Rommel’s Afrika Korps would have swept through the Middle East, cutting the vital supply line through the Suez Canal to Australia and India, and taking the oilfields of the Persian Gulf. Britain would have been isolated, without oil, and unable to fight. These historic battles of 1940–1943 were fought over vast distances on rugged terrain, with supply lines often stretched to breaking point. It was here that David Stirling formed the SAS to perform audacious sabotage missions, and the Long Range Desert Group collected intelligence from behind enemy lines. This is the story of the Allies’ first victory against Hitler’s army, told in the voices of the men who were there, which proved that the seemingly unstoppable Germans could be beaten.

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.

The legacy of Skelligs and other famous monastic settlements in Ireland is remarkably brought alive in the writings of a young monk who traveled the deserts of Egypt to discover the origins and practices of the movement which inspired them. In 384 AD, John Cassian began his 24 interviews with famous Desert Fathers and recorded them in The Conferences which had a profound effect on spiritual life in Western Europe, especially in Ireland. What the Desert Fathers had to say about Christianity and their own spiritual practices is as relevant now as it has been through the ages. Despite the many visible changes in the world, the inner hopes and struggles of humans remain unchanged. Voices from the Desert presents an authentic understanding of Christianity separate from the institutional and theological prisms that came later. Individuals looking for a fresh view of what it means to be a Christian, or to understand the Skelligs' legacy, will appreciate its authenticity, clarity, and relevance.

The idea of the desert as being a place where we escape the pressures of everyday life in order to hear God speak afresh is intimately associated with Jesus' 40 days in the wilderness - our model for keeping Lent today. It is easy to gain a romantic idea of desert sands beneath starlit skies, but in reality the desert is a hard palce tat tests our endurance and few venture there, geographically or emotionally. Reflecting on the work of writers such as Salman Rushdie and R.S Thomas, and bands such as the "Manic Street Preachers", Leslie Griffiths explores the deserts in today's world and teaches us to hear the voices of these unlikely prophets who tell the truth about the human condition and challenge us to change.