- Mass Market Paperback: 352 pages
- Publisher: Penguin Books Ltd; New edition edition (1 Nov 2007)
- Language English
- ISBN-10: 0140095144
- ISBN-13: 978-0140095142
- Product Dimensions: 19.6 x 12.8 x 2 cm
- Average Customer Review: 4.8 out of 5 stars See all reviews (12 customer reviews)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 207,025 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
Arabian Sands (Penguin Classics)
and over 900,000 other books are available for Amazon Kindle .
Learn more
| ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Did you know you can trade in your old books for an Amazon.co.uk Gift Card to spend on the things you want? Visit the Amazon.co.uk Trade-In Store for more details. |
|
There is a newer edition of this item:
|
Product details |
More About the Author
Product Description
Review
Praise for Arabian Sands:
‘one of the greatest travel books of English literature’
Sunday Telegraph
Praise for Among the Mountains:
‘a matchless portrait of a vanished world’
Daily Telegraph
‘the photographs alone make it worth a place on the traveller’s bookshelf’
Wanderlust
‘Here is true grandeur in the landscape and true dignity in the man’
Scotsman
Product Description
The author recounts his travels in the Empty Quarter of Arabia between 1945 and 1950, and describes the vanishing way of life of the Bedouins.
Inside This Book
(Learn More)
Browse and search another edition of this book.
Browse and search another edition of this book.
Tags Customers Associate with This Product(What's this?)Click on a tag to find related items, discussions, and people.
|
What Other Items Do Customers Buy After Viewing This Item?
Customer Reviews
|
Share your thoughts with other customers:
|
||||||||||||||||||||||
|
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
116 of 117 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
One of the best books on desert exploration ever written,
By A Customer
This review is from: Arabian Sands (Travel Library) (Mass Market Paperback)
This book features in my top ten favourites of all time. Thesiger, a quintiessential eccentric English explorer describes in this book five years spent with the Bedu of the southern Arabian Peninsula. Thesiger lived as a Bedu, he adopted their dress, walked barefoot and learned to settle into their rigid, almost ritualistic patterns. Thesiger developed a very deep respect for the Bedu as he believes that the harder the life led the purer the man, and there are not many lives that come harder than those of the Bedu. After all T.E. Lawrence described their daily struggle as 'a death in life'. During his time with the Bedu Thesiger twice crossed the Empty Quarter (Rub 'al Khali) with camels by a longer and more dangerous route than that taken by Philby and Thomas previously. Thesiger and his companions were lucky to have survived as they found themselves without food and water and a long way from a well that none of the Bedu had been to before and that only appeared on Thesiger's notoriously inaccurate map of the region. Equally fortunate was Thesiger managing to avoid the search parties of Omani tribesmen intent on driving him out of their territory, perhaps even to kill him, because he was a Christian. This is an incredible book, describing unimaginable hardships as if they were mere inconveniences, and giving a fascinating insight to a way of life that has all but disappeared as the Bedu trade in their camels for 4 wheel drives. Read this book, it is brilliant.
43 of 43 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Sands of another time,
By A Customer
This review is from: Arabian Sands (Travel Library) (Mass Market Paperback)
This is a difficult book to read if one is looking for excitement, but an absolute gem for anyone who wants to get inside the world of the Bedouin of over half a century ago. Thesiger's prose is spare and discerning and flows through the book like sand through an hourglass. He describes a world that no longer exists; indeed, was on the cusp of change as he made his travels in Arabia. The people he travels with are continuing a way of life that has remained unchanged for millenia but would not survive the following decades.
The life Thesiger describes is hard, unforgiving existence tempered by the bond he forms with his Bedu hosts. His descriptions of his Bedu friends are sympathetic without being effusive and his admiration of and love for them shines from every page. Forget Lawrence and his silly posturing, if you only ever read one book about Arabia of old, this should be it. It left me inspired but, I must confess, somewhat ashamed that the god of oil and mammon should have destroyed a beautiful and unspoilt way of life.
15 of 15 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Magnificent,
By Traveller (Europe) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Arabian Sands (Travel Library) (Mass Market Paperback)
As the reviewer above points out, anyone reading this book will not find excitement leaping from the pages but this is not the objective of the book. People reading it particularly from western countries should reflect on their own lives and how it is in such stark contrast to a way of life which has all but disappeared, for this is Thesiger's message. The book retells the authors' crossing of an inhospitable region of desert in southern arabia known as the empty quarter and his travels around the surrounding area. Full of small anecdotes which illustrate the points Thesiger makes perfectly, the way in which it was written should be commended. A truly magnificent book which has certainly made me think a little deeper.
Share your thoughts with other customers: Create your own review
Would you like to see more reviews about this item?
|
Most Recent Customer Reviews |
Customer Discussions
|
This product's forum
Active discussions in related forums
Search Customer Discussions
|
Related forums
|
Listmania!
Look for similar items by category
Look for similar items by subject
Feedback
- Would you like to update product info or give feedback on images?
- I am the Author, and I want to comment on my book.
- I am the Publisher, and I want to comment on this book.
