Companionable Books: Free Audiobook and Listening Guide

Companionable Books, credited to Henry van Dyke, is available as a LibriVox volunteer audiobook. This guide identifies the recording, its source summary and its audio tracks.

About the work

The LibriVox catalogue summary, preserved with the recording, reads:

LibriVox recording of Companionable Books by Henry van Dyke. Read in English by MaryAnn Spiegel. Many books are dry and dusty, there is no juice in them; and many are soon exhausted, you would no more go back to them than to a squeezed orange; but some have in them an unfailing sap, both from the tree of knowledge and the tree of life. Here I have written about a few of these books which have borne me good company, in one way or another, -- and about their authors, who have put the best of themselves into their work. Such criticism as the volume contains is therefore mainly in the form of appreciation with reasons for it. So I send forth my new ship, hoping only that it may carry something desirable from each of the ports where it has taken on cargo, and that it may not be sunk by the enemy before it touches at a few friendly harbors. (Henry van Dyke)

Recording facts

• Recording title: Companionable Books
• Author credits: Henry van Dyke
• Language: English
• Original MP3 tracks: 13
• Listed recording duration: 6:44:35

Catalogue topics

• bible
• psalms
• Dickens
• Thackeray
• Eliot
• Keats
• Wordsworth
• Browning

Track guide

1. 00 - Preface — 2:06
2. 01 - The Book of Books — 32:47
3. 02 - Poetry in the Psalms — 28:44
4. 03 - The Good Enchantment of Dickens — 43:46
5. 04 - Thackeray and Real Men — 27:46
6. 05 - George Eliot and Real Women — 35:23
7. 06 - The Poet of Immortal Youth (Keats) — 24:45
8. 07 - The Recovery of Joy (Wordsworth) — 45:44
9. 08 - ''The Glory of the Imperfect'' (Browning) — 1:01:13
10. 09 - A Quaint Comrade by Quiet Streams (Walton) — 16:30
11. 10 - A Sturdy Believer (Samuel Johnson) — 24:44
12. 11 - A Puritan Plus Poetry (Emerson) — 23:27
13. 12 - An Adventurer in a Velvet Jacket (Stevenson) — 37:40

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Source and rights

This is a record from LibriVox's official Internet Archive collection, with a public-domain licence recorded in its metadata. LibriVox's policy includes its catalogue summaries as well as its recordings. Its public-domain assessment follows United States law; copyright status can differ elsewhere. The summary and track facts are reproduced and reformatted from that record. Dates attached to the archive upload are not treated as original book publication dates.