Wind, Sand and Stars

This memoir gathers episodes from Saint-Exupéry's years as a pilot, from the early airmail routes over the Sahara and the Andes to crashes, rescues and long hours alone in the sky. He writes of comrades such as Mermoz and Guillaumet, of desert peoples, and of a journey during the Spanish Civil War. Between the stories he reflects on courage, responsibility and what work and danger reveal about human beings. It is admired for its lyrical prose and for treating flight as a way of seeing the earth and our place on it.