Wind, Sand and Stars by Antoine de Saint-Exupery Summary and Reviews
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Book Reviews of Wind, Sand and Stars
Book Review: Fascinating but exhausting
Summary: 4 Stars
This book was very different from Exupery's Little Prince which was more fast-paced and concise. This book has beautiful language and vivid imagery which makes the reader feel like they are in the pilot's seat. However, long-winded descriptions of circumstances, no matter how great they are, are quite tiresome when they go on for pages at a time. If you've got good concentration and mental energy, you'll love this book. I can only read 10 or 15 pages at a time before I get tired. Otherwise, I enjoy the book very much, and I love the wisdom Exupery offers in every page.Book Review: A beautiful series of tales/essays by a man who chose to live a life less ordinary
Summary: 5 Stars
As an office worker I often find myself escaping to books of adventure and travel. Amongst such books the works of Antoine de Saint-Exupery are amongst the finest. Saint-Exupery was a pilot in the fledgling airline industry in the 1920's and 1930's flying mail routes in exotic locales such as Spain, France's African Colonies and South America and then an officer in the French and Free French Air Force during World War Two. But equally importantly Saint-Exupery was an amazing storyteller and philosopher who between tales of plane crashes and amazing escapes reflects on questions such as why do men put their life at risk, when can we say that we truly experience what it means to be alive and what is mans relationship with technology and progress.
If you are interested in the 1920's, aviation or simple want to read the thoughts of a man who led an extraordinary life, you will enjoy Wind, Sand and Stars.
Book Review: Book of many delights (? la belle ?toile)
Summary: 5 Stars
Like many reviewers here, I have also seen the National Geographic Top 100 Adventure list (ranked #3), and the Outdoor Magazine Top 25 Outdoor Literature list (ranked #1), or even the picture of Exupery on French Franc notes (pre-Euro). But it would be narrow to read it for its rank alone. "Earth of Men" (the French title) is poetic verse, metaphorical contrasts and profound insight on what it means to be alive. Exupery captures it through flight, but planes are "only a tool" he says, a means to an end, in stars of infinite possibilities.Book Review: Inside the Mind of a Traveler, Philosopher, and Hero
Summary: 5 Stars
As one of France's premier authors of the 20th century, Antoine de Saint-Exupery's "Wind, Sand, and Stars" is arguably his greatest work among the several outstanding pieces of literature that he managed to publish before losing his life during a reconnaissance mission in WWII.
Having served as a mail pilot whose routes took him across the Mediterranean to the African continent & later across the Atlantic to South America, Saint-Exupery demonstrates how aviation ---a profession that often allows for long periods of solitude and contemplation--- led him to make his most formidable discoveries of the enigma that we call "life." Here, we see through the eyes of a pilot as he remembers not only his perilous travels, but his observations about duty, courage, love, war, sacrifice, death, and other fundamental issues that we encounter during our existence on this planet.
Book Review: A fluffy masterpiece
Summary: 4 Stars
National Geographic magazine named "Wind, Sand and Stars" the third best adventure book of all time. If you like poetry, philosophy, and the elevated phraseology the French are good at you might agree. I'm more inclined to be interested in the who, what, when, and where of subjects and for me "Wind, Sand and Stars" is a bit long on fluff and scarce on hard information.
Saint-Exupery became a pilot in 1926 and this book is a description of his experiences during the next 10 years. He was a mail carrier in Europe, South America and the Sahara in the days when a pilot got his weather report by looking at the sky and found an airport by looking out the window. Flying in those days was truly a adventure and Saint-Exupery tells some exciting tales of storms in Patagonia and a crash in the desert of Libya. All of this is invested with metaphysical musings which would be mundane if he were not such a good writer.
Saint-Exupery disappeared during World War II while flying a reconnaissance mission over the Mediterranean. The wreckage of his plane was found in the sea near the southern coast of France in 1983.
As an alternative -- and more informative -- read to "Wind, Sand and Stars" I like Guy Murchie's "Song of the Sky."
Smallchief