Virga & Bone
Essays from Dry Places

A born son of the Southwestern US, Craig Childs writes about his experiences in this vast, thinly-inhabited, mostly desert region. Rather than just a death trap, the region is alive in hardy plants and animals, rocks and history, replete with the ghosts of the people and animals that have lived and......more

If you have one ounce of desert rat in you, you will be so ready for a trip to see some dusty, dry, but unbelievably gorgeous red rock and blue sky after reading this book.......more

Childs' mesmerizing prose is reminiscent of Edward Abbey. If the desert and nature call to you, you'll love reading his work. This collection of essays about experiencing the desert will draw you into dry and ancient places in the Southwest, sharing archaeological observations and modern viewpoints......more

It starts and finishes strong, but the middle essays didn’t resonate as much with me personally. In my head I was comparing it pretty directly with Ellen Meloy’s “Seasons: Desert Sketches” from the same publisher, and I consider Meloy’s anthology one of my favorite books. Virga & Bone came a little......more