New Englander Diana Kappel-Smith explored the great deserts of the American West over an 18-month period. Traveling largely alone through the Southwest and parts of Idaho and Oregon, she logged 25,000 miles and discovered facets of the desert—and its human inhabitants—that may surprise even long-time residents.

"You come to trust her company and to savor her observations: she is the sort of guide who gestures at what you would otherwise step across—or on—without noticing. She calls her collection 'an introduction to particulars.' These she infuses with radiance." —Los Angeles Times Book Review

"With prose that is both lyrical and down-to-earth, Kappel-Smith makes readers aware of the fragility of the desert and the necessity to preserve these wonderful, alien and mysterious places." —San Francisco Chronicle

"We glimpse moments of experience, rendered both in words and in conscientious line drawings. The book has a gentle, meandering tone. It consciously refuses to manufacture dramatic events." —Christian Science Monitor

"It is a thoroughly instructive and interesting account of the history and character of desert life and geology. Best, it leaves us with a sense of the grand scale, both in space and time, of a living earth." —New York Times Book Review"The fragility of the desert is strikingly described and illustrated in this 'Journey through the American Southwest.'" —Press-Journal