Entrepreneurship Panel: Insights from Chester County Small Biz Owners

Join us for this exciting new panel featuring the unique perspectives of local small business owners as they share their entrepreneurship stories: how they got started, the resources they used, the lessons they learned along the way, and the advice they’d give people looking to start or grow their own business now.

Click here to register. Registration is required and will close 2 hours prior to the scheduled start time of the event. A Zoom link will be emailed to registrants 2 hours before the program starts. Make sure to check the email address you registered with to receive the link. You do not need a Zoom account to attend the virtual program.

This program supports PA Forward Financial Literacy.

Biographies – fascinating life histories – available for download today!

Like biographies? These selected life stories are currently available for download as eBooks.


Ansel Adams by Mary Street Alinder

Elizabeth the Queen by Sally Bedell Smith

The First Tycoon by T.J. Stiles

The Good Neighbor by Maxwell King

Mandela by Anthony Sampson


Napoleon by Andrew Roberts

Sonia Sotomayor by Sylvia Mendoza

Steve McQueen by Marc Eliot

Vincent Van Gogh by Jan Greenberg

The Watcher by Jeanette Winter

Looking for something else? Click here to view all currently available biographies.

Sharing recipes on National Chili Dog Day!

Happy National Chili Dog Day! This month’s issue of Taste of Home magazine has two tasty chili dog recipes for you. Why not try out a Detroit Dog or a Chili Coney Dog?

It’s easy to access these recipes in Taste of Home magazine with your library card: Visit https://chescolibraries.org/downloads and scroll to Flipster.

For all you cooks and grillers, check out these other magazines to help you plan your next meal:

And be sure to visit our Backyard Time digital collection – offering these and many more titles for your outdoor dinners!

Bicycling magazine on Flipster

For serious and recreational bikers, Bicycling magazine offers helpful and interesting information about the popular sport of biking.

Inside the latest issue, you will find:

  • Tips to rain-proof your bike rides
  • Updates on the sport of pro-cycling
  • Information about the latest bikes and equipment

And check out these inspirational feature articles about

  • Alexandera Houchin – ultra cycling’s underdog with a spiritual hunger for her native Ojibwe culture
  • Mike Cohen and his 1,426-mile bike journey to meet the family who saved his life
  • Shannon Galpin – launched the first women’s cycling team in Afghanistan despite many obstacles
  • Paralympian and bike mechanic Leo Rodgers – an unstoppable biker

Here’s how to access Bicycling magazine with your library card: Visit https://chescolibraries.org/downloads and scroll to Flipster.

Retirement information on Flipster – easy access with your library card

If you’re thinking about retiring, these Flipster magazines can help you make important decisions about the next chapter in your life.


The latest issue of Kiplinger’s Personal Finance features the best places to retire and offers information about investing and managing your portfolio.


Kiplinger’s Retirement Report includes helpful information about second careers, taxes, health care and recommended cars for older drivers.


And in the June/July issue of Money magazine, you will find articles on what you need to do before you retire and the best way to recession-proof your retirement.

These and more than 130 additional magazines are available online with your library card. Visit https://chescolibraries.org/downloads and scroll to Flipster to sign in.

Hankin Whodunits Mystery Book Club – Thursday, August 20 via Zoom

The Hankin Whodunits Mystery Book Club will meet via Zoom on Thursday, August 20 at 1 pm to discuss Sadie by Courtney Summers.

Sadie is a New York Times bestseller and an Edgar Award Winner, appearing on over 30 Best Book of 2018 lists including The Boston Globe, Bustle, Buzzfeed, Globe and Mail, Good Morning America, NPA, and Publishers Weekly. It is also a YALSA Top 10 Quick Pick.

When popular radio personality West McCray receives a desperate phone call from a stranger imploring him to find nineteen-year-old runaway Sadie Hunter, he’s not convinced there’s a story there; girls go missing all the time. But when it’s revealed that Sadie fled home after the brutal murder of her little sister, Mattie, West travels to the small town of Cold Creek, Colorado, to uncover what happened.

Sadie has no idea that her journey to avenge her sister will soon become the subject of a blockbuster podcast. Armed with a switchblade, Sadie follows meager clues hoping they’ll lead to the man who took Mattie’s life, because she’s determined to make him pay with his own. But as West traces her path to the darkest, most dangerous corners of big cities and small towns, a deeply unsettling mystery begins to unfold—one that’s bigger than them both. Can he find Sadie before it’s too late?

Alternating between Sadie’s unflinching voice as she hunts the killer and the podcast transcripts tracking the clues she’s left behind, Sadie is a breathless thriller about the lengths we go to protect the ones we love and the high price we pay when we can’t. It will haunt you long after you reach the final page.

Register here for this virtual event.

Sink into a book in celebration of National Hammock Day!

Photo by Andrea Piacquadio on Pexels.com

Today is National Hammock Day and what better time to sink into an eBook or eAudiobook from our digital collection!

Take a look at our current downloadable collections:

Librarian Likes

Library Reads

Just Added

Black Voices

Summer Vibes

Backyard Time

No Holds Audiobooks

No Holds Classic eBooks

Forgotten Favorites

Spanish Language Collection

What’s going to be your next read?

Sky & Telescope magazine on Flipster

When you look to the skies at night, chances are you can identify the Big Dipper and maybe the North Star, but what about everything else that’s up there?

Sky and Telescope magazine is your essential guide to astronomy and you can read it on Flipster with your library card.

Inside the September issue are articles about the volcanic histories of the inner solar system, how scientists are searching for moons outside our solar system, what’s up in September’s skies, a gallery of breathtaking images and many more articles about the world outside our own.

It’s easy to access Sky & Telescope magazine. Here’s how: visit https://chescolibraries.org/downloads and scroll to Flipster to sign in with your library card.

The Address by Fiona Davis – eBook and eAudiobook available for download

Borrow the eBook and eAudiobook

From the author of The Dollhouse and The Masterpiece comes the compelling national bestselling novel about the thin lines between love and loss, success and ruin, passion and madness, all hidden behind the walls of The Dakota—New York City’s most famous residence.

What’s it about?

When a chance encounter with Theodore Camden, one of the architects of the grand New York apartment house the Dakota, leads to a job offer for Sara Smythe, her world is suddenly awash in possibility—no mean feat for a servant in 1884. The opportunity to move to America. The opportunity to be the female manager of the Dakota. And the opportunity to see more of Theo, who understands Sara like no one else…and is living in the Dakota with his wife and three young children.

One hundred years later, Bailey Camden is desperate for new opportunities: Fresh out of rehab, the former interior designer is homeless, jobless, and penniless. Bailey’s grandfather was the ward of famed architect Theodore Camden, yet Bailey won’t see a dime of the Camden family’s substantial estate; instead, her “cousin” Melinda—Camden’s biological great-granddaughter—will inherit almost everything. So when Melinda offers to let Bailey oversee the renovation of her lavish Dakota apartment, Bailey jumps at the chance, despite her dislike of Melinda’s vision. The renovation will take away all the character of the apartment Theodore Camden himself lived in…and died in, after suffering multiple stab wounds by a former Dakota employee who had previously spent seven months in an insane asylum—a madwoman named Sara Smythe.

A century apart, Sara and Bailey are both tempted by and struggle against the golden excess of their respective ages—for Sara, the opulence of a world ruled by the Astors and Vanderbilts; for Bailey, the nightlife’s free-flowing drinks and cocaine—and take refuge in the Upper West Side’s gilded fortress. But a building with a history as rich, and often as tragic, as the Dakota’s can’t hold its secrets forever, and what Bailey discovers inside could turn everything she thought she knew about Theodore Camden—and the woman who killed him—on its head.

Copies of the eBook and eAudiobook are available for download now!

For lazy afternoons: Summer Vibes collection of eBooks and eAudiobooks

Have you seen our Summer Vibes collection of downloadable eBooks and eAudiobooks? They are perfect for lazy summer reading. Here are just a few that are ready for you!


Summer with My Sisters by Holly Chamberlin – eBook

Bestselling author Holly Chamberlin’s heartfelt novel, set in a beautiful Maine beach town, tells of three sisters–and one summer filled with revelations…


Same Beach, Next Year by Dorothea Benton Frank – eAudiobook

New York Times bestselling author Dorothea Benton Frank returns to her magical Lowcountry of South Carolina in this bewitching story of marriage, love, family, and friendship that is infused with her warm and engaging earthy humor and generous heart.


Sunshine Beach by Wendy Wax – eBook

By the USA Today bestselling author of The House on Mermaid Point, three women join forces to bring a historic seaside hotel back to life. There’s nothing that a fresh coat of paint and a few glasses of wine can’t fix….


Looking for other summer reads? View our Summer Vibes collection here.