The Plains of Camdeboo, The Classic Book of the Karoo - Eve Palmer - 2004 (Revised edition) - Jonathan Ball - 319p, maps, 58 Black& white photographs, index - Paperback in good condition - Internally clean and tightly bound.
The Karoo is one of the world's oldest and greatest deserts. To the casual traveller it is an arid desolation, without life and without charm. To those who know it, it is a land of secret beauty and infinate variety, sometimes fierce, sometimes hostile, but exercising a fascination that makes the rest of the world seem strangely tame.
For six generations Eve Palmer's family have lived there, on the farm Cranemere, situated on the Plains of Camdeboo. They have battled constantly against the desert's harsh onslaughts, adapted to it, learned each in turn to love, fear and repect it.
First published in 1966, The Plains of Camdeboo has become something of a classic in South Arican literature. Now revised and updated by the author, its reappearance is to be warmly welcomed.
Here is a book which in not outobiographical, not history, not botanical treatise, but all of these and more, blended into a uniquely vivid and personal account of life in the Karoo. The animals, the insects, the innumerable flowers which spring miraculously to life after rain, the fantastic wealth of fossils and relics of earliest man - all are woven into this rich and absorbing story.
What the reviewers said of the first edition of The Plains of Camdeboo
"Every now and then a book comes out of the mass of written material poured out by thousands of writers which makes one pause, read, reflect and read again with renewed pleasure, Eve Palmer .... has given to South Africa something of a shot in its literary arm" - The Star
"Mens se grootste wens is dat daar stadigaan vir elke streek van ons land so 'n boek die lig sal sien, om die bekoring van lore en legende, van plant, dier en mens, vir die toekoms te bewaar" - Andre Brink, Rapport
