Austin published this in 1903, out of years living in the Owens Valley between the Sierra and Death Valley, and it’s the book that taught American writers how to look at the desert. Short chapters: A buzzard, a scavenger’s territory, a water trail that every animal in the country uses, a Paiute basketmaker named Seyavi, a mining camp, a Mexican town. She writes the desert as full rather than empty, and she pays attention to the people already there when almost nobody else was. Not long after, Los Angeles took the valley’s water, and she saw that coming too.
The Land of Little Rain