The Desert Smells Like Rain: A Naturalist in O'odham Country
“People often find science boring and ill written. Not in this book. Here the reader is lured into botany, ethnology, hydrology, and a couple of million acres by vivid writing, good pictures, and a beautifully produced book. . . . Anyone ignorant of the desert should begin their cure here.” —Tucson Citizen“The humor, spice, charm, insight, and compassion with which Gary Paul Nabhan weaves his tale make for enjoyable reading.” —Rio Grande Sun“Nabhan's point is that we transplanted desert dwellers have a great deal to learn from longtime, environmentally conscious inhabitants if we are not to destroy our fragile home. . . . A remarkably humane essay on nature and respect for it.” —Bloomsbury Review“The Desert Smells Like Rainoffers a remarkable insight, sensitive but unsentimental, combining the sound perceptions of a scientist with ecological concerns, matching humor and a sense of human frailty with tentative hope for the future.” —High Country News“His eyes are those of a scientist, his prose and vision a poet's: spare, evocative, respectful of both facts and mysteries.” —Orion Nature Quarterly