THE LAST NOMAD by Wilfred Thesiger; Dutton; 304 pages; $24.95
Readers inclined toward traveling heroes may recall the passage in Evelyn Waugh's Scoop where Correspondent William Boot outfits himself for assignment in barbarous Ishmaelia: his kit included a "rather overfurnished tent, three months' rations, a collapsible canoe, a jointed flagstaff and Union Jack, a hand pump and sterilizing plant, an astrolabe, six suits of tropical linen and a sou'wester, a camp operating table and set of surgical instruments, a portable humidor, guaranteed to preserve cigars in condition in the Red Sea, and a...