Celebrate National Blueberry Pie Day with new recipes in our Flipster magazines!

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Happy National Blueberry Pie Day! This is the season for berries and you can find new pie and berry recipes in many of our magazines on Flipster.

Here’s a peek at a few magazines that feature pie and berry desserts in their latest issues.

We have more than 80 magazines available on Flipster to read with your library card. Sign in here and get your rolling pin ready!

Use your library card to keep up on book news in the New York Times

Your library card is your link to the book world in the New York Times. See what’s happening today:

  • Read about a new novel, The End of October by Lawrence Wright, in which a new virus upends the world.
  • Preview 11 Books to Watch for in May.
  • Read about If It Bleeds, a new collection of novellas by Stephen King.
  • Access recent articles and book reviews, best sellers and a whole lot more.

You can read the New York Times for free with your library card. Click here to sign in and create your free account.

If you don’t have a library card, you can still get one to tap into our online digital collection, newspapers, Flipster magazines, and helpful databases. Click here to learn how.

Explore nature’s creatures with, live feeds, books and magazines

There’s something both relaxing and fascinating about watching nature’s creatures in their native habitats. These livecams from explore.org give you a close up look at creatures from land and sea, without intruding on them.

Decorah Eagles – Decorah, Iowa USA

Mississippi River Flyway Cam – Brice Prairie, Wisconsin

Honey Bee Landing Zone – Buchloe, Germany

Alligator Swamp and Spoonbills – St. Augustine, Florida, USA

Oliphants River Emangusi, South Africa

Watching these scenes might make you want to read about animals and nature too. Here are some related books, available now for download to your device.

Grizzly Heart – Living Without Fear Among the Brown Bears of Kamchatka by Charlie Russell – download eBook here

H Is for Hawk by Helen Macdonald – download eAudiobook here or eBook here

Never Cry Wolf by Farley Mowat – download eAudiobook here or eBook here

The Snow Leopard by Peter Matthiessen – download eBook here

Voices in the Ocean – A Journey into the Wild and Haunting World of Dolphins by Susan Casey – download eBook here

And check out these magazines on Flipster for more about animals and nature. Sign in here with your library card.

From eBooks, eAudiobooks, newspapers, magazines to
subject databases, our online resources are here for you!

No holds eAudiobooks – ready for download!

We have a collection of no holds audiobooks ready for easy download to your device. To help you choose, here are three you may like.

My Brilliant Friend by Elena Ferrante – download here

Now an HBO series: the first volume in the New York Times bestselling “enduring masterpiece” (The Atlantic) about a lifelong friendship between two women from Naples.

Beginning in the 1950s in a poor but vibrant neighborhood on the outskirts of Naples, Elena Ferrante’s four-volume story spans almost sixty years, as its main characters, the fiery and unforgettable Lila and the bookish narrator, Elena, become women, wives, mothers, and leaders, all the while maintaining a complex and at times conflicted friendship.

This first novel in the series follows Lila and Elena from their fateful meeting as ten-year-olds through their school years and adolescence. Through the lives of these two women, Ferrante tells the story of a neighborhood, a city, and a country as it is transformed in ways that, in turn, also transform the relationship between two women.

One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel García Márquez – download here

One of the twentieth century’s enduring works, One Hundred Years of Solitude is a widely beloved and acclaimed novel known throughout the world and the ultimate achievement in a Nobel Prize–winning career.

The novel tells the story of the rise and fall of the mythical town of Macondo through the history of the Buendía family. Rich and brilliant, it is a chronicle of life, death, and the tragicomedy of humankind. In the beautiful, ridiculous, and tawdry story of the Buendía family, one sees all of humanity, just as in the history, myths, growth, and decay of Macondo, one sees all of Latin America.

Love and lust, war and revolution, riches and poverty, youth and senility, the variety of life, the endlessness of death, the search for peace and truth—these universal themes dominate the novel. Alternately reverential and comical, One Hundred Years of Solitude weaves the political, personal, and spiritual to bring a new consciousness to storytelling. Translated into dozens of languages, this stunning work is no less than an account of the history of the human race.

The Zookeeper’s Wife by Diane Ackerman – download here

Jan and Antonina Zabinski were Polish Christian zookeepers horrified by Nazi racism, who managed to save over three hundred people. Yet their story has fallen between the seams of history.

Drawing on Antonina’s diary and other historical sources, bestselling naturalist Diane Ackerman vividly re-creates Antonina’s life as “the zookeeper’s wife,” responsible for her own family, the zoo animals, and their “guests”: resistance activists and refugee Jews, many of whom Jan had smuggled from the Warsaw Ghetto.

Jan led a cell of saboteurs, and the Zabinski’s young son risked his life carrying food to the guests, while also tending to an eccentric array of creatures in the house (pigs, hare, muskrat, foxes, and more). With hidden people having animal names, and pet animals having human names, it’s a small wonder the zoo’s code name became “The House under a Crazy Star.” Yet there is more to this story than a colorful cast. With her exquisite sensitivity to the natural world, Ackerman explores the role of nature in both kindness and savagery, and she unravels the fascinating and disturbing obsession at the core of Nazism: both a worship of nature and its violation, as humans sought to control the genome of the entire planet.

Want something different? Visit our full collection of No Holds Audiobooks here. And for more information, see our post on Simultaneous Use eAudiobooks here.

When is your favorite time to listen to an audiobook?
Leave a comment – we’d love to hear from you!

Earth Day is coming up – see what we have for you at our online library!

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Earth Day is coming up on Wednesday, April 22. Here are some ways you can observe the day and learn more about our planet. We have books and resources available now to download, read or discover!

These books about the earth are currently available on OverDrive.

50 Simple Things You Can Do to Save the Earth by John Javna and Sophie Javna – eBook

The Future We Choose by Christiana Figueres and Tom Rivett-Carnac – eBook

Invisible Nature by Kenneth Worthy – eBook

Ready, Set, Green by Graham Hill and Meaghan O’Neill – eBook

The Uninhabitable Earth by David Wallace-Wells eBook and eAudiobook

You Can Save the Earth by Andrew Flach – eBook

On Flipster – sign in with your library card here to read National Geographic and Eco Parent magazines.

Our GreenFILE (POWER Library) database offers well-researched information covering all aspects of human impact to the environment. Its collection of scholarly, government and general-interest titles includes content on global warming, green building, pollution, sustainable agriculture, renewable energy, recycling, and more. The database provides indexing and abstracts for more than 384,000 records, as well as Open Access full text for more than 4,700 records. Sign in with your library card here.

Be sure to visit us again at Stay Connected with Chescolibraries for new virtual programs at our libraries, book suggestions, ideas and important community information.

National Orchid Day – celebrate with these newspaper articles, magazines and eBooks!

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Today is National Orchid Day. In celebration of the day, take a look at these articles and eBooks about orchids, available now in the New York Times and on Flipster & OverDrive.

Sign in to Flipster here to read these magazine articles about orchids:

Organic Gardener – April 2020: “From Donkeys to Flying Ducks” by Helen McKerral – exploring the world of native orchids and how to grow them. There are many articles and references to orchids in back issues of Organic Gardener too. Use Flipster’s Search bar on the upper right of your screen.

Horticulture – May 2020: Visit the Daniel Stowe Botanical Garden and the Orchid Conservatory and use the Search bar to visit articles about orchids in back issues.

New York Times – April 18, 2019: “Orchids Bloom in Thousands of Forms. But Why?” by C. Claiborne Ray

To read this article and today’s New York Times, visit our Databases here. Choose New York Times and select Remote Access. Enter your library card number and PIN to create a free account. Type “orchids” in the Search bar on the upper left of your screen.

Maybe you’d like to read a book about orchids. These eBooks are currently available on OverDrive for download to your device.

The Orchid Thief by Susan Orlean

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER. A modern classic of personal journalism, The Orchid Thief is Susan Orlean’s wickedly funny, elegant, and captivating tale of an amazing obsession. Determined to clone an e.ndangered flower—the rare ghost orchid Polyrrhiza lindenii—a deeply eccentric and oddly attractive man named John Laroche leads Orlean on an unforgettable tour of America’s strange flower-selling subculture, through Florida’s swamps and beyond, along with the Seminoles who help him and the forces of justice who fight him.

Wild Orchids by Karen Robards

A blistering romantic suspense novel from the New York Times bestselling author of Pursuit. Far from her sensible life as an English teacher in Kansas, Lora looks forward to a relaxing vacation in Cancun. But fate thwarts her careful plans when a darkly handsome American named Max jumps into her car with a loaded gun.

And on the web, visit the official NationalOrchidDay.com site.

We offer a great variety of magazines, newspapers, eBooks and eAudiobooks, available for easy access with your library card. Read magazines on Flipster, access the Philadephia Inquirer and the New York Times through our Databases and download eBooks and eAudiobooks on OverDrive.

National Poetry Month – brush up on your knowledge with these library resources

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Did you know that in 1862, Emily Dickinson is thought to have composed over three hundred poems? Or that Robert Frost, who wrote in formal meter, compared his contemporaries’ experimentation with free verse to “playing tennis with the net down”? Maybe you’d like to know more about the works of beloved poet Mary Oliver who passed away in 2019. These facts plus literature and information about poets and their works are available through our library databases.

LitFinder (POWER Library) – discover literature content from more than 150,000 full-text poems, 840,000 poem citations and excerpts, 7,100 full-text short stories and novels, 3,800 full-text essays published in the 16th-20th centuries, 2,400 full-text speeches, and 1,250 full-text plays. It also includes biographies, work summaries, photographs, and a glossary. Within LitFinder’s collection, users can access works from over 80,000 authors from 660 nationalities.

MasterFile Premier – provides subject overviews, full text for magazine articles, an image collection and AP clips. Excellent resource for student research and classroom instruction. Information is rich, reliable, and easy-to-use.

ONEFILE: High School Edition (POWER Library) – offers access to age-appropriate content from magazines, journals, newspapers, reference books, and engaging multi-media covering a wide range of subjects, from science, history, and literature to political science, sports, and environmental studies.

Contemporary Authors (POWER Library) – provides a guide to current authors in popular fields, based on the print set Contemporary Authors

Click here to search our catalog for downloadable eBooks and eAudiobooks about poets and poetry:

And on the web, here are three links about poets and poetry:

Join the celebration of National Poetry Month
and take advantage of these great poetry resources!

Collaborative music for you to enjoy, virtually!

Local musicians and musicians around the world are coming together virtually to create some beautiful music. Here are three collaborative performances for you to enjoy.

True Colors – Camden Voices (self-isolation/virtual choir cover)

The Weight | Featuring Robbie Robertson and Ringo Starr| Playing For Change | Song Around The World

Virtual Choir “Va pensiero” (“Nabucco” by G. Verdi) – International Opera Choir

Librarian Likes – hand-picked by our staff

Our staff likes reading as much as you do and we want to share our favorites with you. Our Librarian Likes collection on OverDrive is made up of books liked by Chester County Library and Henrietta Hankin Branch employees. The collection automatically sorts to show titles that are available now first.

These three titles are highlighted in Librarian Likes and are currently available for digital check-out in both eBook and eAudiobook formats. You’re only a few clicks away from your next download!

The Lost Man
by Jane Harper

Two brothers meet in the remote Australian outback when the third brother is found dead, in this stunning new standalone novel from NEW YORK TIMES bestseller Jane Harper. A powerful and brutal story of suspense set against a formidable landscape, The Lost Man confirms Jane Harper, author of The Dry and Force of Nature, is one of the best new voices in writing today.

Available now in eBook and eAudiobook formats.
eBook: https://chester.overdrive.com/media/4187772?cid=79748
eAudiobook: https://chester.overdrive.com/media/3980800?cid=79748

 

The Summer Before the War
by Helen Simonson

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • “A novel to cure your Downton Abbey withdrawal . . . a delightful story about nontraditional romantic relationships, class snobbery and the everybody-knows-everybody complications of living in a small community.”—The Washington Post

The bestselling author of Major Pettigrew’s Last Stand returns with a breathtaking novel of love on the eve of World War I that reaches far beyond the small English town in which it is set.

Available now in eBook and eAudiobook formats.
eBook: https://chester.overdrive.com/media/2381601?cid=79748
eAudiobook: https://chester.overdrive.com/media/2249012?cid=79748

 

The Swans of Fifth Avenue
by Melanie Benjamin

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • The author of The Aviator’s Wife returns with a triumphant new novel about New York’s “Swans” of the 1950s—and the scandalous, headline-making, and enthralling friendship between literary legend Truman Capote and peerless socialite Babe Paley.

Available now in eBook and eAudiobook formats.
eBook: https://chester.overdrive.com/media/2306879?cid=79748
eAudiobook: https://chester.overdrive.com/media/2201620?cid=79748

Be sure to check our Librarian Likes collection regularly for other recommeded titles.

What are some of your favorite reads and listens?