Arabian Sands (Penguin Classics)

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Nearly every listing of the best best travel books mentions this book. And it is no surprise: There is nothing quite like it. Most travel book contains vivid descriptions of the landscape. While Thesiger's occasionally describes the deserts physical details, the book is really a study of its the psychological landscape it creates. "I realized that for me the fascination of this journey lay not in seeing the seeing the country but in seeing it under these conditions." Over the course of three or four journeys across the parched "Empty Quarter" of Arabia with the Bedu people he writes of writes of dreams of food, of longing for water, and of the cultural ways the Bedu adapt to the desert. "They could tell at a glance," he writes, "from the depth of the footprint whether a camel was ridden or A big thanks to my great friend Gordon who gifted me this book on my recent visit to his wonderful part of the world. You know me well mate. 

Arabian Sands by Wilfred Thesiger | Goodreads

Between 1935 and 1940, Thesiger served with the Sudan Political Service, stationed in Darfur and the Upper Nile.

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Arabian Sands by Wilfred Thesiger: 9780141442075 Arabian Sands by Wilfred Thesiger: 9780141442075

It took a recent trip to visit the edge of Australian desert country for me to understand that there is a deep beauty in these so called desolate lands and with that trip in my recent memories Thesiger’s descriptions of the various landscape he crossed and personally explored made his writings compelling. Add to that his deep respect for and descriptions of his travelling companions and their lifestyle along with some history this is a must read for anyone that likes travel readings. Contributions should be appropriate for a global audience. Please avoid using profanity or attempts to approximate profanity with creative spelling, in any language. Comments and media that include 'hate speech', discriminatory remarks, threats, sexually explicit remarks, violence, and the promotion of illegal activity are not permitted. I love travelogues, but this one took a while for me to get into. Obviously, I am not that interested in the arid sandy deserts or in the lives of the people who live there. But Thesiger draws me into his story gradually. His respect for the people who guided him around the Sands at the height of colonialism, his acceptance of cultural differences, and his ability in adapting comfortably, all endeared him to me, despite his crotchety attitude at times.a b c d Behbehani, S.J.Y.; Al Johany, A.M.H.; Sharifi, M.; Papenfuss, T.; Anderson, S.; Shafiei Bafti, S. (2012). " Eryx jayakari". IUCN Red List of Threatened Species. 2012: e.T164738A1072189. doi: 10.2305/IUCN.UK.2012.RLTS.T164738A1072189.en . Retrieved 20 November 2021. While waiting for his Arab escorts, he travels in the Qarra mountains of Dhofar on the southern coast of the Arabian peninsula. He records that the English travellers Bertram Thomas and St. John Philby both crossed the Empty Quarter (in 1929 and 1930), and that he had read Thomas's Arabia Felix and T. E. Lawrence's Revolt in the Desert, which had provoked his interest in the Arabs. Each review score is between 1-10. To get the overall score that you see, we add up all the review scores we’ve received and divide that total by the number of review scores we’ve received. In addition, guests can give separate ‘subscores’ in crucial areas, such as location, cleanliness, staff, comfort, facilities, value for money and free Wi-Fi. Note that guests submit their subscores and their overall scores independently, so there’s no direct link between them.

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Before I start, I have to declare I was pretty apprehensive about this book, and it sat on my shelves for a long time. I am a big Thesiger fan, and his books are excellent, and I find myself limiting my reading of them to one a year. I was concerned I wouldn't like this one, for a couple of reasons - I read a Penguin Great Journeys excerpt book with parts carved from Arabian Sands ( Across the Empty Quarter) and didn't like it much - I found it an awkward selection of excerpts without much explanation or flow. At the time I had hoped it was just the excerpt, not the original text.

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In Sulaiyil, a Yam Arab shows Thesiger an English rifle, which he had taken from a man called bin Duailan, 'The Cat', whom he had killed; bin Duailan had been one of Thesiger's companions the previous year. Thesiger and his party are released; they are unable to obtain a guide at Laila, and instead travel on their own to Abu Dhabi. He is disturbed to find he is hated as a 'Christian' alien. Without a guide, Thesiger navigates the party for eight days to the next oasis at Jabrin, 150 miles to the northeast, using St. John Philby's map. They learn that two months before, raiders from Dubai had killed 52 Manasir Arabs from Abu Dhabi. Thesiger is perhaps the last, and certainly one of the greatest, of the British travellers among the Arabs' Wilfred Thesiger, the author of Arabian Sands, is without question the Real Deal. After being trained as a British secret agent and fighting behind enemy lines in the SAS during World War II, he set out to explore the Empty Quarter of the Arabian peninsula, the largest sand desert in the world. Travelling by foot and on camels with nomadic Bedouin tribes, he crossed and recrossed about 250,000 miles of the most inhospitable terrain on the planet. He was a man of deeds, not words; it took months of cajoling on the part of his friends to persuade him to write this book in which he recounts some of his adventures.