Desert Notes: Reflections in the Eye of a Raven (association copy)

Kansas City: Sheed, Andrew & McMeel, 1976. First edition. Hardcover. Near fine/Near fine. An association copy, inscribed on the half-title page to Gary Paul Nabhan and his first wife: "For Gary & Karen, with very best wishes, Barry Lopez." Lopez's first book, and a particularly nice association in light of Nabhan's own dedication to deserts across his entire career. He is known in particular for his writing on Indigenous populations and ethnobotany in the Southwest. Karen Reichhardt was a fellow botanist; they co-founded a native seed organization together.

A nice association, too, because Lopez and Nabhan are fellow winners of the John Burroughs Medal for nature writing, among many other awards (e.g. Nabhan a Guggenheim, Lopez the National Book Award). Additionally, laid in is a clipping of Nabhan's review of the book for High Country News,  the illustrious environmental magazine based in Colorado. This would have been an important review for Lopez at the start of his career. Nabhan concludes that Desert Notes is "a one-to-one reckoning with the desert, and its hold on the imagination."  

A slim volume in beige cloth with Lopez's black and white photos scattered throughout (Lopez was first a photographer before he left it for writing full time). These pieces float somewhere between fiction and essay and really do announce a writer with a special vision. Oft anthologized is "The Raven." The front free endpaper has Nabhan's name stamp in blue and a "University of Arizona Office of Arid Lands Studies" stamp in black. A very near fine copy in near fine jacket with some edge wear, subtle sunning to spine, and few dark spots on rear panel. A great association

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