The Desert, Further Studies in Natural Appearances: Free Audiobook and Listening Guide

The Desert, Further Studies in Natural Appearances, credited to John Charles 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 The Desert, Further Studies in Natural Appearances. Read by Sue Anderson. The Desert by John Charles Van Dyke, published in 1901, is a lush, poetic description of the natural beauty of the American Southwest. "What land can equal the desert with its wide plains, its grim mountains, and its expanding canopy of sky!" Van Dyke, a cultivated art historian, saw "sublimity" in the desert's "lonely desolation," which previous generations had perceived only as a wasteland, and his book has a conservationist flavor which seems distinctly modern. "The deserts should never be reclaimed," he writes. "They are the breathing spaces of the west and should be preserved for ever." The changing colors of the sky, hills, and sand impress Van Dyke, as do the mirages. He celebrates the "long overlooked commonplace things of nature"-- cactus and grease wood, desert animals, and "winged life," the birds and insects. His writing has a philosophical undertone. "Not in vain these wastes of sand ... simply because they are beautiful in themselves and good to look upon whether they be life or death." Anyone who views with equal awe fiery sunrises and weeds growing out of pavement cracks will enjoy this reading of Van Dyke's The Desert. (Summary by Sue Anderson)

Recording facts

• Recording title: The Desert, Further Studies in Natural Appearances
• Author credits: John Charles Van Dyke
• Language: English
• Original MP3 tracks: 13
• Combined MP3 track duration: 5:56:19

Catalogue topics

• non-fiction
• nature
• travel
• US
• plants
• animals

Track guide

1. 00 - Preface-Dedication — 7:57
2. 01 - The Approach — 32:05
3. 02 - The Make of the Desert — 32:04
4. 03 - The Bottom of the Bowl — 28:37
5. 04 - The Silent River — 20:05
6. 05 - Light, Air, and Color — 26:07
7. 06 - Desert Sky and Clouds — 20:49
8. 07 - Illusions — 28:53
9. 08 - Cactus and Greasewood — 34:08
10. 09 - Desert Animals — 35:26
11. 10 - Winged Life — 30:00
12. 11 - Mesas and Foot-Hills — 28:36
13. 12 - Mountain - Barriers — 31:32

Listen to this recording

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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.