The most recommended desert books

This book fills the wilds of Texas with a plague of zombie-like “shakes,” and somehow they are all the scarier for being more of a backdrop than the core of the story. The desert setting is almost a character itself, and it practically shimmers with menace. Between the haunting sense of place and time and the galloping pace of the action, I gobbled down this book in one sitting.

Published 50 years after Desert Solitaire, seventh-generation Utah resident Amy Irvine talks about her respect for Abbey’s impact on her life and writing, while also not holding back on lambasting Abbey for his behavior and hypocrisy. Irvine told Orion magazine, “My goal was not to take Abbey down, but rather to make space for other voices and relationships to the natural world.” While Abbey might be the context for the book, Irvine goes on to deliver a fascinating exploration into her own take on the wonders of wilderness. She can be as hard on herself as she is on Abbey. This book is a great contemporary look at a key question for those of us who explore the wilds: How do we keep from loving it to death? 

I once was lucky enough to spend a night camping in the desert under a saguaro cactus. These big, human-looking cacti are magnificent, and this book really captures how important they are to the desert and all the animals that live there. Beautiful illustrations really make me remember that night under the stars and how impressive the giant saguaros are. I’ve learned that when kids feel a sense of awe toward nature, that’s the first step in becoming an environmentalist.

I bought this book in Arizona during a recent road trip. I’ve read several Louis L’Amour stories, because I love Westerns.

This is one of his longest – a real epic. It is set in the deserts of California and Arizona, with a map and totally authentic history. The characters are strong and consistent, the situations exciting. L’Amour employs all the usual stereotypes (strong goodie, terrifying baddie, feisty females) and makes them real.

He is the forerunner of the Jack Reacher books which use many of the same features in an updated setting. 

I absolutely love thrillers and stories filled with suspense.

The problem with that is, all I can ever seem to find are thrillers about washed-up detectives, which are fine and all, but sometimes I want to read a suspenseful story in a different genre. If a story can do that and weave in history, war, and the Bible, I’m in.

Ted Dekker checks every box with A.D. 30, and he’s just a master of storytelling. Dekker keeps you on the edge of your seat and brings together unlikely worlds in unexpected ways that are just so much fun to read.

Even better, this book really made me think about different cultures and the things we all have in common. 

Long fascinated by the accounts of travellers drawn to the world’s arid zones, as if by a strange magnetism, William Atkins immerses himself in deserts from Oman to Australia, Kazakhstan to the United States. The book is both a study of extreme environments and a deeply personal journey that often touches on the political: the Australian chapter becomes an excoriating attack on the British government’s use of the desert as a nuclear testing ground, which devastated Aboriginal communities. There are also some extremely funny parts, as when Atkins ends up in the debauchery of Nevada’s Burning Man festival, surely the most reluctant and awkward festival-goer who has ever graced its playa.

Read this if you devour mysteries served with a side of science fiction. The main character, Rylie, moves back to Twentynine Palms in her grandfather’s old house in the Mojave Desert. Weird things are happening. Then Rylie finds out that her childhood best friend’s sister disappeared and her grandfather may be involved. Rylie keeps losing time. Who is the bad guy?? Nobody knows. Is it the grandfather? The guy on the news? The government Rylie’s mom works for? Her new stepbrother who may be too helpful? Her childhood bestie? Rylie herself? I couldn’t put this one down!

Stoker is the queen of military/former-military “families.” You pick up a book and instantly fall in love with that team of men. Shielding Sierra is her latest (as of January 2022) and it happens to be at the end of a series. Stoker writes in a single universe, so while we know this team, we also see previous teams she’s written, and the family unit that they all build with one another really shines in Sierra, when one of their own purposely becomes a POW in order to save the heroine.

Why did I choose this book? It was the cover with the camels being led across the desert at sunrise. I’m a sucker for deserts and camels! Then it was the title The Sky Worshipers. How fascinating. Add to that the fact that I knew nothing of the Mongols and you have it all. And to learn that the story was fictionalized from actual diaries of Mongol princesses?! Get ready for a fascinating read albeit at times horrifying and moving.

Abbey wrote twenty-one books. While others considered him a “nature writer,” he roiled at that idea.

Instead, he considered himself a novelist, and he spent his entire career trying to write “the great American novel.” Published in 1988, a year before his death, Abbey called The Fool’s Progress his “fat masterpiece.” And I agree.

This might be his most intimate and emotional book. To me, this book aches with heart. This semi-autobiographical novel is about Henry Holyoak Lightcap’s journey home from the Desert Southwest to die in West Virginia.

The book is filled with reflection on death, which was what Abbey was experiencing in his own life.