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migmig's review
2.0
Instead of being stuck next to a blow hard on a plane, stay home and go on a virtual hike with a blow hard. Covid safety y’all
rebeccakb's review
1.0
I really wanted to like this book. It fell flat for me though. The jumping from various folklore and myths, to hiking trips, to climate concerns, to the 2016-2019 years, the moves, the almost hallucinatory feel to many of the passages. I wasn't able to quite catch the thread, and often felt out of the loop regarding the authors and myths/folktales. Ah well, it happens.
herbwyfe's review
3.0
Philosophical ramblings...interesting and as an audiobook, I found it easy to drift off.
forg3d's review
adventurous
informative
reflective
4.25
Ehrenreich's informative non-fiction memoir offers a glimpse into humanity's conception of time, its relativity within past, present, and future, a reflection on humankind's response to catastrophe, and delves into historical myths and stories while contemplating climate change and our contributing role towards the phenomenon. He discloses snippets of his life, revealing his thoughts and attitudes about the beauty of deserts and the corresponding symbolism present within the environment and time.
eamcmahon3's review
1.0
Let me start by saying I hope the author never reads this review. With that disclaimer, this was a bad book. It was painful to read and I had to drag myself through it. Not only was it boring, but it jumped all over the place with the seeming only continuity being owls and endings. I wanted the book to end ahout 200 pages before it did. The historical references were dry and the personal anecdotes were oddly specific. Overall, would not recommend.
deckofkeys's review
challenging
dark
funny
informative
reflective
sad
tense
slow-paced
5.0
This book meanders. It takes its time. It feels hectic, but it’s burning incredibly slowly. But fuck, does it burn. Probably one of the most important books written this decade.
zazine's review against another edition
informative
inspiring
reflective
medium-paced
4.0
It’s been a couple of months since I’ve read Desert Notebooks and I find myself thinking about it every time there’s mention of climate change on the news or when I’m just walking in the park.
I guess there’s a sense of impremanence to human history that this book really captures in all it’s ramblings about time and progress (or what we perceive as progress). And don’t get me wrong, I like the ramblings, they’re the best part. I listened to this as an audiobook and sometimes it filled me with dread and other times I found is soothing, but it was never boring. It felt like listening to a friend tell you about all the wonderful things he’s learned and how none of them really matter in the end. One man’s nihilism is another’s zen.
annevoi's review
5.0
This book begins with a walk in a desert wash, and an owl. It ends much the same way. But in between is a vast exploration of time, of myth, of change, of place, of faith, of history, of life. The owl and deserts, as well as the nature of time, are themes throughout.
I loved this book. It does feel like a writer's notebook, with sometimes very short (two-sentence) sections of description or musing, sometimes longer mini-essays on a larger topic. As such, it constantly changes course, taking the reader in new, and always fascinating directions. There is Lilith of the Bible, the creation tale of the K'iche' Maya, the Ghost Dance, rock art; there is also present-day politics, the climate crisis, Palestine, and Las Vegas. And so much more. It's impossible to summarize, except to say it's a deep meditation on what it is to be alive in the America of today. In that regard, it is not especially optimistic. We are not living in a pretty time. But more than that, it is a meditation on lived experience, how we interact with the world.
I flagged many, many passages. Here are two as a sampling. The first describes Ehrenreich's perception of time while living in war-torn Ramallah in 2014:
Time seemed to have changed its shape. The clocks behaved as they always had, ticking away, counting off the hours. They seemed to mock us. Time no longer proceeded evenly and sequentially, but according to a strange logic of dread. It curved and bent, revealing pockets inside itself, pockets and holes in which it was easy to get lost. Sometimes time rushed forward, then something happened—usually death—and it stopped, melted, and recovered. It lurched off, racing once more, zigging and zagging before dissolving again and somehow, from nothing, reconstituting itself and limping on.
I had felt this before in other countries on the verge of collapse. I've felt it since, not quite so acutely but nearly constantly, in the year since the Rhino's [Trump's] election. I don't know what to call it. The time of Crisis, Vertigo Time, the Time of Collapse, Black Hole Time. The days and hours lose their shape, their uniformity, the confidence with which they once marched forth. Time appears to fall apart.
I would say this is even more true of life in the time of Covid-19, which hadn't hit yet when he wrote this book. Though yes, it was bad enough simply with Trump at the helm and things otherwise "as usual."
And here's a bit on the Mesopotamian understanding of the universe, pasted onto the present day:
The entirety of existence was a text waiting to be read. Which means there could be no line between the reader and the written. You, who are reading this, you too are written, you too can be read. And I, a writer, am already written through and through. Everything between us, everything that separates us, mountains, stars, years, shimmering thoughts and dreams that die with waking, all of it is a single chain of signs that do not point to another reality, only to this one, all at once.
I could quote more, but as I said: it's difficult to pin this book down. So I'll leave it at that. Like Jenny Odell's How to Do Nothing, I could definitely see reading this book all over again and finding it just as stimulating.
I looked at Goodreads to see what people thought, and most people either loved it (*****) or hated it (*), in the latter case because the author, in the very first sentence, calls Trump “the Rhino” (appropriately, if you ask me)—those folks simply objected to the name-calling, never mind what was actually in the book—or else because the book isn’t really about the desert in all its glory. That’s exactly what I liked about it, though: the book is about the desert and so much more, and it’s about our present moment, which is awful in so many ways, and yet time marches, spirals, wings us into an other time, inevitably. This won’t last forever. With any grace from the gods, it won’t last more than two more months. But yes, we’ve made it through awful times before, and we’ll do it again. Even as we keep on changing the planet. And that, too, has happened before, over and over. Nothing new under the sun. But that said, this present moment is in itself something of a miracle. Both at once. Ain't it amazing?
I loved this book. It does feel like a writer's notebook, with sometimes very short (two-sentence) sections of description or musing, sometimes longer mini-essays on a larger topic. As such, it constantly changes course, taking the reader in new, and always fascinating directions. There is Lilith of the Bible, the creation tale of the K'iche' Maya, the Ghost Dance, rock art; there is also present-day politics, the climate crisis, Palestine, and Las Vegas. And so much more. It's impossible to summarize, except to say it's a deep meditation on what it is to be alive in the America of today. In that regard, it is not especially optimistic. We are not living in a pretty time. But more than that, it is a meditation on lived experience, how we interact with the world.
I flagged many, many passages. Here are two as a sampling. The first describes Ehrenreich's perception of time while living in war-torn Ramallah in 2014:
Time seemed to have changed its shape. The clocks behaved as they always had, ticking away, counting off the hours. They seemed to mock us. Time no longer proceeded evenly and sequentially, but according to a strange logic of dread. It curved and bent, revealing pockets inside itself, pockets and holes in which it was easy to get lost. Sometimes time rushed forward, then something happened—usually death—and it stopped, melted, and recovered. It lurched off, racing once more, zigging and zagging before dissolving again and somehow, from nothing, reconstituting itself and limping on.
I had felt this before in other countries on the verge of collapse. I've felt it since, not quite so acutely but nearly constantly, in the year since the Rhino's [Trump's] election. I don't know what to call it. The time of Crisis, Vertigo Time, the Time of Collapse, Black Hole Time. The days and hours lose their shape, their uniformity, the confidence with which they once marched forth. Time appears to fall apart.
I would say this is even more true of life in the time of Covid-19, which hadn't hit yet when he wrote this book. Though yes, it was bad enough simply with Trump at the helm and things otherwise "as usual."
And here's a bit on the Mesopotamian understanding of the universe, pasted onto the present day:
The entirety of existence was a text waiting to be read. Which means there could be no line between the reader and the written. You, who are reading this, you too are written, you too can be read. And I, a writer, am already written through and through. Everything between us, everything that separates us, mountains, stars, years, shimmering thoughts and dreams that die with waking, all of it is a single chain of signs that do not point to another reality, only to this one, all at once.
I could quote more, but as I said: it's difficult to pin this book down. So I'll leave it at that. Like Jenny Odell's How to Do Nothing, I could definitely see reading this book all over again and finding it just as stimulating.
I looked at Goodreads to see what people thought, and most people either loved it (*****) or hated it (*), in the latter case because the author, in the very first sentence, calls Trump “the Rhino” (appropriately, if you ask me)—those folks simply objected to the name-calling, never mind what was actually in the book—or else because the book isn’t really about the desert in all its glory. That’s exactly what I liked about it, though: the book is about the desert and so much more, and it’s about our present moment, which is awful in so many ways, and yet time marches, spirals, wings us into an other time, inevitably. This won’t last forever. With any grace from the gods, it won’t last more than two more months. But yes, we’ve made it through awful times before, and we’ll do it again. Even as we keep on changing the planet. And that, too, has happened before, over and over. Nothing new under the sun. But that said, this present moment is in itself something of a miracle. Both at once. Ain't it amazing?
arielamandah's review
5.0
4.5 stars. I really loved this book. I'm debating dipping back in and reading it again, just to make sure that I absorb the whole thing. It's a very hard book to describe. What is it about? I'm not sure exactly. Lots of things. Everything. If you need or are expecting a strong narrative arc, or a singular premise/thesis, this book may not be for you. The title felt accurate: notebooks, or journals, centered around the main topic of the author's personal experience living in desert locations. There were themes that wove through the various portions of the books - threads that connected topics that otherwise didn't seem related. Owls, time, Lillith, "the Rhino" (Trump), the news cycle... people, places.... it felt true to how we notice the world around us - things jump into our awareness and then we keep noticing them as they show up, again and again. Some parts of the book felt really academic, and I will admit to not being at my closest attention during a few of those parts, but overall, I found a lot to love here. It made me want to pick up my pen again and start writing my own notebooks and reflections on the world.