One day the spectacularly ill-equipped MacKintosh set out to walk around Baja California, with $150 in his pocket and a gallon jug of water in each hand. This is the vastly entertaining and typically British story of his 3,000-mile lark around the Peninsula. The book takes the form of a two-year-long diary, recounting the eccentric personalities and his day-to-day efforts to feed himself -- along with some down-to-earth prose on the remote grandeur of the desert and sea. While not exactly literary, the book is a fine introduction to the pleasures -- and perils -- of the desert.  (BJA07, $16.95)

Walking
Deserts