hoopla is Here!

hoopla's Here!!!

 

 

                   

          

 Why are we so excited?

Beginning this month, Wellesley Free Library Card holders will have access to thousands of movies (at least 2 years old), television shows, music  

albums and audiobooks -- all available for mobile and online access -- through hoopla. 


You may stream on your computer or use the hoopla app to view and listen on your phone or tablet.  AND most importantly, there is no waiting.  The titles are ALWAYS available!  
 

 It's easy to do:

• Have your Wellesley Library Card out and sign up at http://www.hoopladigital.com

• If you are using a mobile device (phone, tablet, etc.) download the app at the bottom of the hoopla page or from the Apple App Store or Google play Store.  (If you are using a computer, the file will simply stream so no need for an app).

• Log in to Hoopla on your mobile device or PC

• Browse, borrow, and enjoy 5 digital videos, music or audiobooks per library card each month.

• Borrowed titles will be automatically returned when your lending period is over. 

Lending Periods are:

• Movies and TV content are available for 72 hours (3 days)
• Music albums are available for 7 days
• Audiobooks are available for 21 days

For more information and assistance, visit the library, sign up for the class on March 25th, or simply stop by an Open Lab (Mondays 1 PM to 4 PM and Tuesdays 6 PM to 8 PM)

Have fun and tell us how you like hoopla ! 

SH

  

2014 Grammy Award Winner: Best Spoken Word Album

Did you know that there's a Grammy Award for best spoken word album?  

Check out this year's winner and request from the library today!

America Again: Re-becoming The Greatness We Never Weren't by Stephen Colbert




Other Nominees:

Carrie and Me by Carol Burnett
Carol Burnett shares her personal diary entries and correspondence revealing her anguish as a mother of a troubled teenager, the epiphanies that helped her help her family, and the grief and then the hope she felt after Carrie's death.



Let's Explore Diabetes With Owls by David Sedaris
From the unique perspective of David Sedaris comes a new collection of essays taking his listeners on a bizarre and stimulating world tour.




Still Foolin' 'Em By Billy Crystal
Billy Crystal is 65, and he's not happy about it. With his trademark wit and heart, he outlines the absurdities and challenges that come with growing old, from insomnia to memory loss to leaving dinners with half your meal on your shirt.

The Storm King by Pete Seeger
Pete Seeger recounts his most engaging stories, narratives, and poems, set to new music created by over 70 musicians from traditions as diverse as African Music, Blues, Bluegrass, Celtic Music, Classical Guitar, Folk, Israeli Music, Jazz, Native American Music, and Tuvan Throat Singing.

LB

Best Audio for 2013 (according to Library Journal)

Many of you have enjoyed listening to Books on CD and Playaways in your car or while you are

exercising, but have you listened to the Best Audio for 2013?

Library Journal has provided us with titles to put on our list for 2014.  Check out all of the titles!

Some of the titles you will find are:

     Fiction

    Longbourn by Jo Baker

    How the Light Gets In by Louise Penny

   Vampires in the Lemon Grove by Karen Russell.

Nonfiction

Crazy Salad & Scribble Scribble by Nora Ephron

Five Days at Memorial: Life and Death in a Storm-Ravaged Hospital by Sherri Fink

Frozen in Time:  An Epic Story of Survival and a Modern Quest for Lost Heroes of World War II by Mitchell Zuckoff

SH

Mass Book Awards 2013 announced in time for Summer Reading!

The Massachusetts Book Awards' mission is to highlight the work of our vital contemporary writing community and encourage readers to do some "close reading" of those imaginative works created by the authors among us.  

 We highlighted the MassBook "must reads" announced in March and are happy to provide you with the winners so you may add them to your summer reading list.  Click on the link and request today!

2013 Winners:

Fiction

The Technologists by Matthew Pearl.  (One of my favorite books.  The audio is quite good.)
A well-researched mystery set in 1868 which brings to life the history of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology's first senior class, the beginnings of the MIT/Harvard rivalry, and life in early Boston.

Non-Fiction
Brothers: George Howe Colt on his Brothers and Brothers in History by George Howe Colt.
An idiosyncratic and masterful blend of memoir and history featuring both the author’s three brothers and iconic brothers in history—the Booths, the Van Goghs, the Kelloggs, the Marx Brothers, and the Thoreaus.


Children's/Young Adult

Ocean Sunlight: How Tiny Plants Feed the Seas by Molly Bang and Penny Chisholm.
Explains how all life on the Earth depends, directly or indirectly, on light from the sun, and describes how all ocean life, from the tiniest plankton to great whales, including the creatures in the darkest depths, form a web that uses sunshine.

SH

Earth Day--April 22

Celebrate Earth Day 2013 (April 22) by stopping by the 2nd floor

display table and picking up a book, book on CD, or DVD.

The display is entitled Oh What a Beautiful World and features topics on geology, geography, gardening, early humans, animals, environment, energy, AND even some fiction focusing on these topics...or at least with related words in the title.

Some titles you might enjoy are:

Books
Adventures in Tornado Alley:  The Storm Chasers
The Neandertal Enigma
K2: Life and Death on the World's Most Dangerous Mountain
Trilobite!: Eyewitness to Evolution
Eaarth: Making a Life on a Tough New Planet
Global Climate Change: The Book of Essential Knowledge
Dust:  A History of the Small & the Invisible
The Unconquered: In Search of the Amazon's Last Uncontacted Tribes

Book on CD
Silent Sea
World Without End
Global Warming:  Global Threat
Terminal Freeze
Journey to the Center of the Earth

DVD
HumanPlanet: The Complete Series
Ape to Man
Ascent of Man
The Jacques Cousteau Odyssey (6 vols)
Dirt: The Movie

Stop by the display and find what else is waiting for you....

SH

The Voice

If you’re like most audio-listening fans, the quality of the narrator’s voice is one of the most important features in the enjoyment of the audio experience. A “bad” voice will cause even the most enthusiastic listener to press “stop.” As a particularly demanding listener myself around voice quality, especially woman’s voices, here are two stellar selections I recommend:

 Charlotte Bronte: Jane Eyre. Books on CD 2002 Read by Josephine Bailey

 

 You’ve read the book, you’ve seen the movie(s) but have you had the book read to you? Most likely your answer is no. So, delay not and borrow this audio version read by Josephine Bailey. Ms. Bailey’s voice is an unusually pleasurable voice to listen to for all the characters encountered in this well-loved novel. In a light, mellow English accent Ms. Bailey makes the world of Thornfield Hall, Lowood School, and Gateshead Hall come to life as well as some of the most vivid characters in all of literature.

To see this audio book in our catalog click: here

Second recommendation: 

Cheryl Stayed: Tiny Beautiful Things. Books on CD 2012 Read by the author

 Cheryl Stayed, who wowed the publishing industry with her memoir Wild, also writes an advice column in The Rumpus called “Dear Sugar.” In this audio presentation Ms. Stayed reads the letters from her advice column and her answers. The questions and answers are so riveting that if you’re listening in your car you’ll drive around a few extra minutes just to hear her read the full reply. Ms. Stayed has an appealing voice and a deep, warm heart. Don’t miss this experience. 

To see this audio book in our catalog click:here

-PM

New Audiobooks

 

Our newest audiobooks are now displayed to your left as you enter the Media Room on the first floor of the main library.  Come in and browse our entire audio collection including books on CD, MP3s, Playaways and a small collection of books on cassette. Many of our titles are also available on Overdrive to download as an ebook or audioook. A few of our recent titles:

-DB

Sue Recommends Bloodline: A Sigma Force Novel by James Rollins

Are getting bored with the lazy days of summer?  Try an action packed suspense novel by James Rollins titled Bloodline: ASigma Force novel.  

Rollins brings together a team of elite operatives, a holy treasure (the staff of Jesus Christ) that was uncovered by a Templar knight, Somali pirates, a kidnapping of a mother and her unborn child, and a centuries-old conspiracy to manipulate our genetic code to weave a story that leaves you anxious to see what happens next.

  

I listened to the book on cd and the reader is excellent.  Believe me, this book is anything but boring!  SH

October 2011 Audiofile Earphone Awards

If you are an audiobook lover, you will want to take a look at the newly announced Audiofile Earphone Awards for October, 2011. These awards are given to audio presentations with exceptional

• narrative voice and style

• vocal characterizations

• appropriateness for the audio format

• enhancement of the text

Some of the titles include:

The Wreckage by Michael Robotham; read by Sean Barrett.

The Return by Hakan Nesser; Read by Simon Vance.

Neuromancer by William Gibson; Read by Robertson Dean

Dead Man's Folly by Agatha Christie; read by John Moffatt



So if you are going on a trip, exercising, or just relaxing, request one of the October 2011 Audiofile Earphones Award Winners to enjoy!

SH

The Marilyn Obsession

The coming fiftieth anniversary of Marilyn Monroe's death in 2012 has sparked even more Marilyn Obsession (as described last week in the NYT Fashion & Style section).  The October Vogue cover story features a photo shoot by Annie Liebowitz of Michelle Williams as Marilyn, the role she plays in the upcoming movie My Week with Marilyn.  The movie is based on the book by Colin Clark, son of Sir Kenneth Clark (most well-known to Americans for his 1969  BBC series, Civilization). The audio version of Clark's book features narrator Simon Prebble, one of AudioFile's Best Voices of 2009.

-DB

eBooks for Kindle Now At Wellesley Free Library

The Wellesley Free Library has been providing eBooks for a while now through a company called Overdrive. We are glad to announce that our selection of eBooks are now available for the Kindle.

All you need is a library card.

Visit our collection of eBooks Here.

Instructions on how to download our books to your Kindle click Here.

eBooks are also available from the following free websites.

Project Gutenberg

Internet Archive

Feedbooks

Baen Free Library

TB

Audiobooks in MP3 format

Our audiobook collection in MP3 format is growing quickly. Many popular titles, both fiction and nonfiction, are available for your listening pleasure without the hassle of changing discs. Unabridged titles are usually recorded on 1 or 2 discs. Most newer cars (2008 and beyond) have the players built in. The collection is currently shelved on your left as you enter the Media Room on the first floor of the library. If you don't see the title you are looking for, feel free to see a Reference Librarian who may be able to reserve it for you. Some of our newest titles in this format include : Bloodmoney by David Ignatius, Children and Fire by Ursula Hegi, and To End all Wars by Adam Hochschild.

-DB

The Audies--Best Audiobooks for 2011

On May 23, Keith Richard's Life won Best Audiobook and Best Spoken Biography/Memoir for 2011. The book was read by Keith Richards, Johnny Depp and Joe Hurley.



If you love audiobooks, listen to some of the winners and the nominees for the 2011 award!

Other Audie winners include:

Best Fiction
Winter's Bone by Daniel Woodrell; read by Emma Galvin.


Best Mystery and Suspense
The Reversal by Michael Connelly; read by Peter Giles.

Best Thriller/Suspense
The Girl who Kicked the Hornet's Nest by Stieg Larsson; read by Simon Vance.

Best Science Fiction/Fantasy
The Stainless Steel Rat by Harry Harrison; read by Phil Gigante

Best Romance
The Secret Diaries of Charlotte Bronte by Syrie James; read by Bianca Amato.

Best Non-Fiction
The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot; read by Cassandra Campbell and Bahni Turpin.


SH

6 Must Use FREE eBook & Audiobook Websites

If you’re anything like me you have or know someone who has an e-reader. Each device lets you easily buy books from the associated stores. But, you are not limited to purchasing titles for your e-reader. You can get free eBooks to read on your Kindles, Nooks, iPads, and other devices.

Below you will find my 6 must use free eBook and audiobook websites. Each of them provides free content that you can read on your e-readers or listen to on your mp3 players.

Project Gutenberg
http://www.gutenberg.org/wiki/Main_Page
-Has eBooks at http://www.gutenberg.org/catalog/
-Has Audiobooks at http://www.gutenberg.org/browse/categories/1
-Many different formats (HTML, EPUB, and Kindle for eBooks. MP3, iTunes, Ogg Vorbis, and Speex for audiobooks)
-Many different languages
-No signup
-Largest collection of free public domain books
-Proofread by dedicated volunteers = good quality texts.
-Lots of “classic” literature
-The eBooks are available for iPad, iPhone, and iPod Touch via free app Stanza

Internet Archive
http://www.archive.org/
-Public domain titles
-Has eBooks at http://www.archive.org/details/texts
-Has Audiobooks at http://www.archive.org/details/audio_bookspoetry
-Many different formats (PDF, Kindle, EPUB for eBooks. MP3 and Ogg Vorbis for audiobooks)
-No signup

Feedbooks
http://www.feedbooks.com/
-Has eBooks for free or to buy
-Has public domain titles at http://www.feedbooks.com/publicdomain
-Has original works at http://www.feedbooks.com/original
-Has for sale titles at http://www.feedbooks.com/store
-Used by well-known authors like Cory Doctorow (free titles)
-EPUB, Kindle, and PDF formats
-No signup for free titles
-Easy to search and get titles in formats for popular eReaders (Kindle, Nook, Sony Reader, iPad)

Google Books
http://books.google.com/ebooks
-Has eBooks for free at http://books.google.com/books
-Has eBooks to buy at http://books.google.com/ebooks (some free too)
-Has public domain titles, previews of other titles
-Provides links to booksellers and libraries
-Download titles to iPhone/iPad with appropriate app, or Android devices with appropriate app
-EPUB and PDF formats work with Sony eReader, BN Nook, Kobo eReader
-Not compatible with the Kindle
-No signup for free titles, but need to download an app for iPhone/iPad/iPod Touch, Android, and Nook and Sony devices

Baen Free Library
http://www.baen.com/library/defaultTitles.htm
-Science Fiction titles (i.e. 1812 by Eric Flint)
-Multiple formats (EPUB/Nook, Mobi/Palm/Kindle, Microsoft Reader, Sony Reader, Rich Text, etc)
-No signup

BookShouldBeFree
http://www.booksshouldbefree.com/
-Has free audiobooks
-MP3 and iPod/iTunes formats
-Suggests similar titles to the one you are browsing
-No signup
-Download the titles to your computer and then sync them with your MP3 player via software like iTunes.

JR

Audie Awards

The 15th annual Audies Gala for best audiobook recording recently took place at the Museum of the City of New York. Some of the winners are as follows:

2010 Winners

THE MALTESE FALCON - Audiobook Adaptation
Dashiell Hammett, Read by Michael Madsen, Sandra Oh, Edward Herrmann, and a Full Cast
Blackstone Audiobooks

NELSON MANDELA'S FAVORITE AFRICAN FOLKTALES - Audiobook of the Year
Nelson Mandela [Ed.], Read by Gillian Anderson, Benjamin Bratt, LeVar Burton, Ricardo Chavira, Don Cheadle, Matt Damon, Whoopi Goldberg, Sean Hayes, Hugh Jackman, Samuel L. Jackson, LaTanya Richardson Jackson, Scarlett Johansson, Debra Messing, Helen Mirren, Parminder Nagra, Sophie Okonedo, CCH Pounder, Alan Rickman, Jurnee Smollett, Charlize Theron, Blair Underwood, Forest Whitaker, Alfre Woodard
Hachette Audio

NURTURESHOCK - Personal Development winner Po Bronson, Ashley Merryman, Read by Po Bronson
Hachette Audio

THE TIME OF MY LIFE - Audiobook of the Year Runner Up
Patrick Swayze, Lisa Niemi, Read by Patrick Swayze
Simon & Schuster Audioa



THE SCREWTAPE LETTERS - Audio Drama Runner Up
C.S. Lewis, Read by Andy Serkis, Geoffrey Palmer, Eileen Page, Laura Michelle Kelly, and a Full Cast
Focus on the Family


ANNE FRANK REMEMBERED - Biography/Memoir winner
Miep Gies, Alison Leslie Gold, Read by Barbara Rosenblatt
Oasis Audio/Springwater





RAIN - Business/Educational winnerJeffrey J. Fox, Read by Jeffrey J. Fox
Brilliance Audio


GREAT EXPECTATIONS - Classic winner
Charles Dickens, Read by Charlton Griffin
Audio Connoisseur

THE HELP - Distinguished achievement in production winner
Kathryn Stockett, Read by Bahni Turpin, Octavia Spencer, Jenna Lamia, Cassandra Campbell
Penguin Audio/ Books on Tape




TEARS IN THE DARKNESS - History winner
Elizabeth M. Norman, Michael Norman, Read by Michael Prichard
Tantor Audio


WOLF HALL - Literary fiction winner
Hilary Mantel, Read by Simon Slater
Macmillan Audio/ BBC Audiobooks America

DEVIL IN A BLUE DRESS - Mystery & Suspense winner
Walter Mosley, Read by Michael Boatman
Audible, Inc.

THE NATIONAL PARKS - Nonfiction winner
Ken Burns and Dayton Duncan,
Read by Ken Burns and Dayton Duncan
Books on Tape

LA TRAVERSIA DE ENRIQUE/ ENRIQUE'S JOURNEY - Spanish language winner
Sonia Nazario, Read by Adriana Sananes
Recorded Books/ AudioLibros

DARLING JIM - Thriller/Suspense winner
Christian Moerk, Read by Stephen Hoye, Justine Eyre
Tantor Audio

BLACK MASK AUDIO MAGAZINE, VOL. 1 - Short Stories/Collections winner
Dashiell Hammett, Raymond Chandler, Earl Stanley Gardner, et al., Read by Richard Ferrone, Grover Gardner, Anthony Heald, Malcolm Hillgartner, William Hughes, Lorna Raver, Burt Ross, Rochelle Savitt, Christine Williams, Tom Weiner, Kaitlin Hopkins, George Guidall, Jeff Woodman
Blackstone Audiobooks

BELLWETHER - Science Fiction/Fantasy winner
Connie Willis, Read by Kate Reading
Blackstone Audiobooks

-DB