The Great Uighur Empire ruled Inner Asia in the 8th and 9th centuries and their descendants, the Taklamakanians, created a thousand years of unforgettable history. Crossing the Sands of Time provides the true story of Inner Asia and the Uyghur people and contrasts their history with depictions peddled by some authors and social media today. Color

Wifred Thesiger describes his journeys in the Empty Quarter and the Arabian Peninula during the late forties. At that time few Europeans travelled in those areas and occasionally their presence was not welcome. From these journeys he emerged with a great respect for the Bedu who were his travelling companions. His writing style is masterly as he describes his journeys in a plain language which is at the same time eloquent. He shows a great understanding of and a fondness for the Bedu people and their now vanished way of life. Theiseger is also a photographer of exceptional ability and this volume contains a large number of the photographs he took on his expeditions. These and the text create a stunning picture of the land and its peoples. The author is considered the last of the great explorers and this book is an exquisite record charting his memorable adventures with travelling companions bin Kabina and bin Ghabaisha across the Arabian Empty Quarter. He was a skilled photographer and was unique among travel writers of the past in having had the opportunity to take photographs that complement his formidable writing.

"We had no vehicle. We didn't know how or if we could continue heading south. I was in a vast, seemingly endless desert. I didn't know when or if we'd make it to the other side. I didn't even know where the other side was. It wasn't in Algeria. I knew that much. Was it in Niger? Where does the Sahara actually end?" We live in a culture, Donahue writes, which loves "climbing mountains." We want to see the peak, map out a route, and follow it to the top. Sometimes this approach works, but not always, particularly when we are enduring a personal crisis-divorce, job loss, addiction, illness, or death. We may not know exactly where we are going, how to get there, or even how we'll know we've arrived. And it's not just in times of crisis. There are many deserts in our lives, situations with no clear paths or boundaries. Finding a job is usually a mountain, but changing careers can be a desert. Having a baby is a mountain, especially for the mom. But raising a child is a desert. Battling cancer is a mountain. Living with a chronic illness is a desert. In the desert, we need to follow different rules than we follow when conquering a mountain. We need to be more intuitive, more patient, more spontaneous. Donahue outlines six "rules of desert travel" that will help us discover our direction by wandering, find our own personal oases, and cross our self-imposed borders. "The sun appears like a silent explosion, a slow motion fireworks display dazzling the volcanic crags of the Hoggar. I stand up and walk to the path and begin descending to Klaus' car. I've made my decision. Tallis and I will travel, somehow, to Agadez. I don't have a logical explanation for my decision or a plan to get to the last oasis. I know I am on the right journey-I am following my compass." Shifting Sands shows us how to slow down, reflect, and embrace the changes of life graciously, naturally, and courageously.

Two tiny trilobites in a vast Cambrian ocean drift past sea cucumber parasols and a shaggy, tree-like sponge. Snail tracks loop enigmatically against brushed-gray Silurian slate, and ghostly white crinoids feather a Devonian seascape. A delicate pterosaur flies bravely into the Jurassic gloom, while a Tyrannosaurus rex so big that its teeth fill our field of vision stalks the deep orange sands that mark the end of the Cretaceous period. These are just a few scenes from the magnificent drama that unfolds in glorious full color and three-dimensional texture in Rock of Ages, Sands of Time. Each of Barbara Page's 544 contiguous painted panels represents a million years of the history of life on earth, with fossil plants and animals depicted at the same scale and in association with each other just as they might be found by a paleontologist in the field. A muted rainbow of background colors evoke the rocks in which the fossils were found—the Texas Red Beds, for instance, or the yellow Solnhofen limestone—and keystone events are shown metaphorically, with fat rolls of paint marking major extinctions or continental drift. To fully experience the awesome impact of an eon's worth of time spread across 500 feet of bas-relief panels, you'd have to visit the Museum of the Earth in Ithaca, New York, where Page's specially commissioned work will be installed when the museum opens in 2002. But this book is the next best thing. Not only does it contain crisp color reproductions of each painting, but it also includes an accessible essay from paleontologist Warren Allmon giving the scientific context behind the art. For fossil lovers of all ages, and anyone interested in the merging of art and science, Rock of Ages, Sands of Time will be the find of a lifetime.

Thirteen new stories by the celebrated writer, including two which he considers his greatest achievements to date, artfully blend elements from many literary geares.