Is 'Arabian Sands' the greatest adventure book of all time?

I recently finished reading Wilfred Thesiger’s 1959 book “Arabian Sands,” and I highly recommend it to those of you in the reading audience who enjoy a world class adventure tale.

I’ve wanted to read this book ever since May 2004 when National Geographic ranked it No. 6 on its prestigious “100 Best Adventure Books” list. “Arabian Sands” can also be found on a number of other “best of” lists. It was ranked No. 13 on a list called “The Essential Adventure Library: 50 Nonfiction Books” that was compiled by The Art of Manliness, and Outside Magazine ranked it No. 10 on its list of “25 Best Adventure Books of the Last 100 Years.”

It was also named one of the “Greatest Adventure Books of All Time” by the Easton Press and was also included on National Geographic Traveler’s “Around the World in 80 Books” list. It was also the top-ranked book on Longitude Book’s list of “The 86 Greatest Travel Books of All Time.”

For those of you unfamiliar with this awesome book, it details Thesiger’s travels across Arabia’s “Empty Quarter” between 1945 and 1950. Thesiger was one of the first Europeans to see some of the desert places he visited with Bedouin guides, and his travels were filled with danger. Not only did he have to battle thirst and hunger, but he also ran the risk of being put to death by the various Arab tribes he encountered. Thesiger was highly observant, and his observations about the people he encountered were insightful and entertaining.

I found this book to be especially interesting because almost all of it took place in the Arabian Desert, and I actually spent some time in that wasteland during 2003 and 2004. In Thesiger’s day, that part of the world had been largely untouched by Western oil developers, and it has obviously changed a lot since those days. Thesiger did a masterful job of capturing the desert way of life just before it passed out of existence forever in the face of looming oil development in the region. I could definitely relate to this book in a way that I can’t with most other travel books.

I also couldn’t help but compare this book to T.E. Lawrence’s 1922 book, “Seven Pillars of Wisdom.” Both books are set in the desert and describe the adventures of adventurous Englishmen among native desert-dwellers. To me, I thought Thesiger’s book was the better of the two. It wasn’t as dense and seemed to be the most “reader friendly” of the two books. That’s not to say that “Seven Pillars of Wisdom” isn’t an awesome book. It’s just that “Arabian Sands” is an easier read.

“Arabian Sands” wasn’t Thesiger’s only book. Thesiger died in 2003 but not before writing “The Marsh Arabs” (1964), “The Last Nomad” (1979), “The Life of My Choice” (1987), “Visions of a Nomad” (1987), “My Kenya Days” (1994), “The Danakil Diary” (1996), “Among the Mountains” (1998), Crossing the Sands (2000) and “My Life and Travels” (2002) and “A Vanished World” (2001). I haven’t read any of those books, but if they’re half as good as “Arabian Sands,” then they’re worth checking out.

In the end, how many of you have read “Arabian Sands”? What did you think about it? Did you like it or not? Why? What was your favorite part? Let us know in the comments section below.