{"schema_version":"bf_book_companion_v1","release_id":"20261010T034321Z-reviewed-full-unique-works","book":{"amazon_purchase_url":"https://www.amazon.com/dp/1250800358?tag=bookfrontie00-20","asin":"1250800358","authors":["Ken Layne"],"book_id":"9781250800350","canonical_url":"https://bookfrontier.com/books/desert-oracle-9781250800350","cover_image_url":"https://img.bookfrontier.com/9781250800350.jpg?v=12c93c03ce13d5d3","description":"The cult-y pocket-size field guide to the strange and intriguing secrets of the Mojave—its myths and legends, outcasts and oddballs, flora, fauna, and UFOs—becomes the definitive, oracular book of the desert For the past five years, Desert Oracle has existed as a quasi-mythical, quarterly periodical available to the very determined only by subscription or at the odd desert-town gas station or the occasional hipster boutique, its canary-yellow-covered, forty-four-page issues handed from one curious desert zealot to the next, word spreading faster than the printers could keep up with. It became a radio show, a podcast, a live performance. Now, for the first time—and including both classic and new, never-before-seen revelations— Desert Oracle has been bound between two hard covers and is available to you. Straight out of Joshua Tree, California, Desert Oracle is “The Voice of the Desert”: a field guide to the strange tales, singing sand dunes, sagebrush trails, artists and aliens, authors and oddballs, ghost towns and modern legends, musicians and mystics, scorpions and saguaros, out there in the sand. Desert Oracle is your companion at a roadside diner, around a campfire, in your tent or cabin (or high-rise apartment or suburban living room) as the wind and the coyotes howl outside at night. From journal entries of long-deceased adventurers to stray railroad ad copy, and musings on everything from desert flora, rumored cryptid sightings, and other paranormal phenomena, Ken Layne's Desert Oracle collects the weird and the wonderful of the American Southwest into a single, essential volume.","forthcoming":false,"isbn13":"9781250800350","publication_date":"20211207","publisher":"Picador","slug":"desert-oracle","subtitle":"Volume 1: Strange True Tales From the American Southwest","title":"Desert Oracle"},"discovery":{"categories":{"all":[{"bisac_code":"NAT045010","confidence_band":"high","label":"Desert Life","score":0.8592,"source":"bisac_hint_model"},{"bisac_code":"TRV025120","confidence_band":"medium","label":"Mountain West Travel (AZ, CO, ID, MT, NM, NV, UT, WY)","score":0.7761,"source":"bisac_hint_model"},{"bisac_code":"TRV025110","confidence_band":"medium","label":"Western US Travel","score":0.7653,"source":"bisac_hint_model"}],"hint":[{"bisac_code":"NAT045010","confidence_band":"high","label":"Desert Life","score":0.8592,"source":"bisac_hint_model"},{"bisac_code":"TRV025120","confidence_band":"medium","label":"Mountain West Travel (AZ, CO, ID, MT, NM, NV, UT, WY)","score":0.7761,"source":"bisac_hint_model"},{"bisac_code":"TRV025110","confidence_band":"medium","label":"Western US Travel","score":0.7653,"source":"bisac_hint_model"}],"publisher":[{"bisac_code":"NAT024000","confidence_band":"high","label":"Nature Writing","score":1,"source":"onix_publisher_code"},{"bisac_code":"NAT045010","confidence_band":"high","label":"Desert Life","score":1,"source":"onix_publisher_code"},{"bisac_code":"TRV025120","confidence_band":"high","label":"Mountain West Travel (AZ, CO, ID, MT, NM, NV, UT, WY)","score":1,"source":"onix_publisher_code"}]},"genres":[{"label":"Desert Life","score":0.8592,"slug":"desert-life"},{"label":"Mountain West Travel (AZ, CO, ID, MT, NM, NV, UT, WY)","score":0.7761,"slug":"mountain-west-travel-az-co-id-mt-nm-nv-ut-wy"},{"label":"Western US Travel","score":0.7653,"slug":"western-us-travel"}],"reader_fit":["Readers drawn to Mojave folklore, desert oddities, and paranormal phenomena."],"related_lists":[],"series":null,"similar_books":[{"authors":["Celina Osuna"],"book_id":"9781682832622","cover_image_url":"https://img.bookfrontier.com/9781682832622.jpg?v=868ebb79b5e2cb4e","score":0.7363,"title":"Desert Distortion","url":"https://bookfrontier.com/books/9781682832622"},{"authors":["Edward Abbey"],"book_id":"9780847875504","cover_image_url":"https://img.bookfrontier.com/9780847875504.jpg?v=195c01c399f16d5d","score":0.7348,"title":"Desert Images","url":"https://bookfrontier.com/books/9780847875504"},{"authors":["David Alloway"],"book_id":"9780292704923","cover_image_url":"https://img.bookfrontier.com/9780292704923.jpg?v=23777e92f012b8a4","score":0.7276,"title":"Desert Survival Skills","url":"https://bookfrontier.com/books/9780292704923"},{"authors":["Michaela Weglinski"],"book_id":"9781426338342","cover_image_url":"https://img.bookfrontier.com/9781426338342.jpg?v=1da13635a0b7903d","score":0.7204,"title":"In the Desert (national Geographic Kids Readers, Pre-reader)","url":"https://bookfrontier.com/books/9781426338342"},{"authors":["Paul Theroux"],"book_id":"9780358362791","cover_image_url":"https://img.bookfrontier.com/9780358362791.jpg?v=4e20e48b8ed9ba29","score":0.6981,"title":"On the Plain of Snakes","url":"https://bookfrontier.com/books/9780358362791"},{"authors":["Kenneth A. Brown"],"book_id":"9780060927592","cover_image_url":"https://img.bookfrontier.com/9780060927592.jpg?v=3e744523b213170c","score":0.6949,"title":"Four Corners","url":"https://bookfrontier.com/books/9780060927592"},{"authors":["Craig Childs"],"book_id":"9781948814188","cover_image_url":"https://img.bookfrontier.com/9781948814188.jpg?v=6b694fb863982a62","score":0.6922,"title":"Virga & Bone","url":"https://bookfrontier.com/books/9781948814188"},{"authors":["iO Tillett Wright"],"book_id":"9780525575153","cover_image_url":"https://img.bookfrontier.com/9780525575153.jpg?v=e7f8f576a572ba43","score":0.6906,"title":"Oasis","url":"https://bookfrontier.com/books/9780525575153"}],"topics":[{"evidence_refs":["keyword:travel writing"],"label":"Travel","score":0.0878,"slug":"travel"},{"evidence_refs":["keyword:nature writing"],"label":"Writing","score":0.051,"slug":"writing"},{"evidence_refs":["keyword:nature writing"],"label":"Nature","score":0.0486,"slug":"nature"},{"evidence_refs":["phrase_map_match"],"label":"Short Stories","score":0.0216,"slug":"short-story"}],"what_you_get":["Themes: American Southwest folklore, Desert flora and fauna, Paranormal phenomena.","Themes: Travel, Writing, Nature.","Reading lane: Desert Life and Mountain West Travel (az, Co, Id, Mt, Nm, Nv, Ut, Wy)."]},"llm_signals":{"confidence":0.92,"pacing":"unknown","reader_fit":["Readers drawn to Mojave folklore, desert oddities, and paranormal phenomena."],"themes":["American Southwest folklore","Desert flora and fauna","Paranormal phenomena"],"tropes":[]},"source_presence":{"amazon":true,"book_detail":true,"goodreads":true,"llm_signals":true,"similarity_seed":true},"stats":{"amazon_ratings_count":289,"goodreads_ratings_count":1019,"goodreads_reviews_count":147,"quality_score":0.9299}}