Treasures in the box – BorrowBox eBooks and eAudioBooks

Find these hidden gems of eAudiobooks and eBooks by New Zealand authors on BorrowBox. Immerse yourself in the storylines that are read by the authors’ own voices. You can download the app from AppleStore or GooglePlay for a better experience.

cover imageMoney in the Morgue : Unabridged edition / Ngaio Marsh, Stella Duffy Read by Stella Duffy
“Shortlisted for the CWA Historical Dagger Award 2018. Mr Glossop’s car breaks down he is stranded for the night at the isolated Mount Seager Hospital. Trapped with him are a group of quarantined soldiers with a serious case of cabin fever, three young employees embroiled in a tense love triangle, a dying elderly man, an elusive patient whose origins remain a mystery … and a potential killer. ” (Adapted from BorrowBox)

cover imageThe Luminaries / Eleanor Catton Read by Mark Meadows
“It is 1866, and Walter Moody has come to make his fortune upon the New Zealand goldfields. On arrival, he stumbles across a tense gathering of twelve local men, who have met in secret to discuss a series of unsolved crimes. A wealthy man has vanished, a whore has tried to end her life, and an enormous fortune has been discovered in the home of a luckless drunk. Moody is soon drawn into the mystery.” (Adapted from BorrowBox)

cover imageThe Parihaka Woman / Witi Tame Ihimaera Read by Shavaughn Ruakere, Jim Moriarty
“Richly imaginative and original, weaving together fact and fiction, it sets the remarkable story of Erenora against the historical background of the turbulent and compelling events that occurred in Parihaka during 1870-80. As Erenora’s world is threatened by war and land confiscation, Erenora must take up her greatest challenge and save her exiled husband, Horitana.” (Adapted from BorrowBox)

cover imageThe 10pm Question / Kate de Goldi Read by Stig Wemyss
“The 10pm Question is an award-winning novel which defies all age categories. It does so with a sparkling wit and an operatic cast of characters so delightful and maddening they become dear to us. Frankie Parsons is twelve going on old man, a talented boy with a drumbeat of worrying questions: animals, flu, and cancer. Only Ma answers his 10pm questions, but it is Ma who is the cause of the most worrying question of all. ” (Adapted from BorrowBox)

cover imageDisplaced / Cristina Sanders
“Eloise and her family must leave Cornwall on a treacherous sea journey to start a new life in 1870s colonial New Zealand. On the ship across, Eloise meets Lars, a Norwegian labourer travelling below decks, and their lives begin to intertwine. When her brother disappears, her father leaves and the family are left to fend for themselves in their new home, Eloise must find the strength to stand up. An enthralling historical novel of immigration, courage and first love from an award-winning New Zealand author.” (Adapted from BorrowBox)

cover imageAccess Road / Maurice Gee Read by Heather Bolton
“As she watches her brother losing the battle with his memories, Rowan wonders how long she can keep her own past at bay. Rowan was safe in her ‘upper crusty’ suburb, now drawn more strongly ‘out west’. Clyde Buckley – violent as a boy; enigmatic, subterranean as an old man – returns to his childhood territory. What does he want? What crimes does he hide? And how is Lionel involved? Rowan must find out. ” (Adapted from BorrowBox)

cover imageMister Pip / Lloyd Jones Read by Susan Lyons
“After the trouble starts and the soldiers arrive on Matilda’s island, there comes a time when all the white people have left. Only Mr Watts and his wife remains. As Mr Watts stands before the class and reads the only book left to him, Great Expectations ‘by my friend Mr Dickens’, Dickens’s hero, Pip, starts to come alive in Matilda’s imagination. And on an island at war, the power of the imagination can be a dangerously provocative thing.” (Adapted from BorrowBox)

cover imageA Conversation With My Country / Alan Duff Read by Alan Duff
“A fresh account of New Zealand from one of our hardest-hitting writers. Following Once Were Warriors, Alan Duff wrote Maori: The Crisis and the Challenge. His controversial comments shook the country. A quarter of a century later, New Zealand and Maoridom are in a very different place. Alan never shies away from being a whetstone on which others can sharpen their opinions.” (Adapted from BorrowBox)

Crochet Projects to Challenge You

I don’t know about any of you other crocheters, but I’m bored with crocheting granny squares and the afghan throw of eternity (it’s nearly big enough to cover a king size bed, twice, how do I stop??)  I have a huge yarn stash, built up after last year’s lockdown so that never be without yarn in a lockdown again, and of course, a lot more time to actually crochet, but inspiration has been lacking.   Then I realised I had access to Overdrive from home, and I went hunting for eBooks and online magazines to kickstart my crochet creativity.  I thought I’d share a few that I really enjoyed with you here:

Kawaii Crochet by Melissa Bradley – super easy amigurumi patterns for 40 very cute food toys.  I hadn’t attempted amigurumi before, and Kawaii Crochet was a great primer for getting started.  I made the cutest little lemon in about half an hour at my first attempt.

 

Title details for 100 Micro Crochet Motifs by Steffi Glaves - Wait list

100 Micro Crochet Motifs by  Steffi Glaves – I cannot resist a tiny crochet and these are perfect for making into earrings.  Or perhaps add to berets and beanies to give them a pretty twist.  Again, these patterns are easy to follow and are a good way to use up the leftover bits of yarn from earlier projects.

 

Title details for Yarn Bombing by Mandy Moore - Available

Yarn Bombing by Mandy Moore – want to jazz up the neighbourhood on your socially distanced walk?  Learn a little about the history of yarn bombing/graffiti, seek out some inspiration and find some patterns to create for your first yarn bomb projects.

 

Title details for My First Crochet Book by CICO Books - Wait list

My First Crochet Book by CICO Books – if you have bored kids, involve them in crochet.  This junior crochet book is written in simple language, has plenty of starter projects that both you and the kids can get into.  Crochet is excellent for young minds and hands.  It’s very calming, you can find a crochet hook that suits small hands without having to buy special junior ones, it’s inexpensive to start (a ball of acrylic yarn is the best place to start) and there’s a completed project at the end.

Title details for Go Crochet! Afghan Design Workshop by Ellen Gormley - Available

Go Crochet! Afghan Design Workshop by Ellen Gormley – Ok maybe you do want to work on an Afghan throw of eternity.  That’s the thing with Afghan rugs and throws, you can just keep going at them and watch them grow.  This book will kick you off if you’ve never made an Afghan design before and give you inspiration for some new ones.

 

Title details for How to Make 100 Crochet Appliques by Deborah Burger - Available

How to Make 100 Crochet Appliques by Deborah Burger – another book of small, stashbuster patterns, great for making patches for clothes, bags, hats, you name it.  I can see some of them as brooches too.  Lots of themes and motifs for you to work your way through.

 

Title details for Lacework for Adventurous Crocheters by Margaret Hubert - Available

Lacework for Adventurous Crocheters by Margaret Hubert – perhaps your crochet skills are a little more advanced than mine and you’d love to give some fine lacework a go.  I haven’t had a go at these yet, but I did drool over the patterns and styles on offer.  One day I hope to have the confidence to have a go at these.

 

These are just the tip of the iceberg for the books and magazines you can find on Overdrive for crochet, not to mention all of the other craft topics available.  You can find more crochet books and magazines here.

Happy stitching!

Book Club “Always Available” eBooks

Kia ora koutou — Jonny from Wellington City Library here. We know that a lot of you are reading or listening to books using Overdrive or Libby, but sometimes it can be frustrating dealing with wait times for popular titles. That’s why I’m here to talk about “The Book Club”. Have a watch (or read) below!

The Book Club is a curated selection of over 200 titles that are always available. We’re talking eBook AND eAudiobooks, fiction AND non fiction, from around the world AND right here in Aotearoa. Big name authors too, winners of local and international awards as well as some in te reo maori and international languages. They’re always available — which is especially helpful right now, and in the future, if you can’t get to the library for whatever reason.

To see this collection, head to either Libby or Overdrive on the eLibrary page. On overdrive you’ll find The Book Club under “Collections”, in Libby they’re called Unlimited Book Club Loans (go to ‘More guides’, then ‘The Book Club’). They’re also available on their respective apps.

Remember, if you have any questions about any of our services, you can fill out our online support form, or reach us on social media (Twitter, Facebook, Instagram), or email enquiries@wcl.govt.nz. Ka kite!

Your Lucky (eBook) Day is here!

Skip the waiting line and borrow the most popular eBooks and audiobooks with our Lucky Day eBook and eAudiobook titles!

Overdrive Lucky Day Promotional Image - It's your Lucky Day

These titles can be found, borrowed and read on a first-come, first-served basis through Libby — the award-winning, one-tap reading app from OverDrive (read more about getting started with Libby). The program is meant to be a bit like the serendipity of picking up popular titles off the shelf in a library.

Browse our Lucky Day Collection

The easiest way to find available titles for both our adult and kids Lucky Day collections is to scan the homepage of either Libby or OverDrive for our special Lucky Day curated lists.

Because our Lucky Day titles turn over so quickly, it’s difficult to provide direct links to Lucky Day copies  (only the ones currently available will show), but examples of recent titles are best-selling fiction eBooks like Fair Warning by Michael Connelly, The Book of Two Ways by Jodi Picoult and The Midnight Library by Matt Haig. Recent New Zealand non-fiction titles include Maori Made Easy by Scotty Morrison, Impossible: My Story by Stan Walker and Bella: My Life in Food by Anabel Langbein.

You can browse what’s available right now on our Lucky Day shelf. The list of titles will change as books are returned to the collection, so check back often.

Lucky Day titles are a bit different to regular lending copies. They are:

  • Available for 14 days (as opposed to 21 days)
  • Not able to be reserved
  • Not able to be renewed

For even more Lucky Day titles, try our Kids Lucky Day collections, full of the most popular kids authors and titles like Harry Potter, Diary of  a Wimpy Kid and David Walliams stories, sure to make you smile.

For more information on our Kids Lucky Day collections, read this excellent post from our Kids blog by our Children’s coordinator, Stephen!

 

 

 

Book Club eBooks on Libby

Good books do not invite unanimity. They invite discord, mayhem, knife fights, blood feuds.”
― Joe Queenan

Running a book club has always had challenges:
Can everyone get a copy of the book in time?
Can all the members of the group afford the cost?
Will the overseas suppliers get extra copies in on time?

Well, help is at hand in the form of a new service from our electronic Libby/Overdrive collection.

The Book Club is a specially selected collection of over 400 Book club titles. All available to download instantly onto your electronic device.

With twenty four seven day access to all selected Book club titles, there is no waiting. Access is instant and there is no charge and no limit to the number of copies available. The title automatically expires once the borrowing period ends, so there is no need to worry about returning the book. The collection features fiction, poetry and Nonfiction titles including an extensive classic range of over 300 titles from The Art of War by Sun Tzu to Siddhartha by Hermann Hesse.

There is also a carefully curated selection of Aotearoa Titles such as the Booker Award Winning The Luminaries by Eleanor Catton as well as a young adult selection and a children’s selection.

This new Book Club service is ideal for book clubs, book groups or just loose collections of friends or acquaintances who all want to read the same title at the same time. Though of course if you’re not part of a book club or reading group you are more than welcome to borrow any of these titles as an individual.

Below is just a very small selection of the titles available. To explore further go to our Libby/Overdrive site. Enjoy!

Overdrive cover Colin McCahon, Peter Simpson (ebook)
“The first of an extraordinary two-volume work chronicling forty-five years of painting by New Zealand’s most important artist, Colin McCahon.Colin McCahon (1919–1987) was New Zealand’s greatest twentieth-century artist. Through landscapes, biblical paintings and abstraction, the introduction of words and Maori motifs, McCahon’s work came to define a distinctly New Zealand modernist idiom. Collected and exhibited extensively in Australasia and Europe, McCahon’s work has not been assessed as a whole for thirty-five years.” (Adapted from Overdrive description)

Overdrive cover Baby, Annaleese Jochems (ebook)
“Cynthia can understand how Anahera feels just by looking at her body.Cynthia is twenty-one, bored and desperately waiting for something big to happen. Her striking fitness instructor, Anahera, is ready to throw in the towel on her job and marriage. With stolen money and a dog in tow they run away and buy ‘Baby’, an old boat docked in the Bay of Islands, where Cynthia dreams they will live in a state of love. But strange events on an empty island turn their life together in a different direction.”(Adapted from Overdrive description)

Overdrive cover Walden, Henry David Thoreau (ebook)
“One of the most famous non-fiction American books, Walden by Henry David Thoreau is the history of Thoreau’s visit to Ralph Waldo Emerson’s woodland retreat near Walden Pond. Thoreau, stirred by the philosophy of the transcendentalists, used the sojourn as an experiment in self reliance and minimalism… Part autobiography, part manifesto Walden is a moving treatise on the importance distancing oneself from the consumerism of modern Western society and embracing nature in its place.”(Adapted from Overdrive description)

Overdrive cover Moby Dick, Herman Melville (ebook)
“The itinerant sailor Ishmael begins a voyage on the whaling ship Pequod whose captain, Ahab, wishes to exact revenge upon the whale Moby-Dick, who destroyed his last ship and took his leg. As they search for the savage white whale, Ishmael questions all aspects of life. The story is woven in complex, lyrical language and uses many theatrical forms, such as stage direction and soliloquy.”(Adapted from Overdrive description)

Overdrive cover The Brain, David Eagleman (ebook)
“This is the story of how your life shapes your brain, and how your brain shapes your life.’ Join renowned neuroscientist David Eagleman on a whistle-stop tour of the inner cosmos. It’s a journey that will take you into the world of extreme sports, criminal justice, genocide, brain surgery, robotics, and the search for immortality. On the way, amidst the infinitely dense tangle of brain cells and their trillions of connections, something emerges that you might not have expected to see: you.”(Adapted from Overdrive description)

Overdrive cover A Field Guide to Getting Lost, Rebecca Solnit (ebook)
“A Field Guide to Getting Lost is an investigation into loss, losing and being lost. Taking in subjects as eclectic as memory and mapmaking, Hitchcock movies and Renaissance painting, Rebecca Solnit explores the challenges of living with uncertainty. Beautifully written, this book combines memoir, history and philosophy, shedding glittering new light on the way we live now.”(Adapted from Overdrive description)

Overdrive cover Pachinko, Min Jin Lee (ebook)
“Yeongdo, Korea 1911. In a small fishing village on the banks of the East Sea, a club-footed, cleft-lipped man marries a fifteen-year-old girl. The couple have one child, their beloved daughter Sunja. When Sunja falls pregnant by a married yakuza, the family face ruin. But then Isak, a Christian minister, offers her a chance of salvation: a new life in Japan as his wife.Sunja’s salvation is just the beginning of her story. Through eight decades and four generations, Pachinko is an epic tale of family, identity, love, death and survival.”(Adapted from Overdrive description)

Overdrive cover Plank’s Law, Lesley Choyce (ebook)
“Trevor has known since he was ten years old that he has Huntington’s disease, but at sixteen he is informed that he has one year to live. One day while he’s trying to figure stuff out, an old man named Plank finds him standing at a cliff by the ocean. It’s the beginning of an odd but intriguing relationship. Both Trevor and Plank decide to live by Plank’s Law, which is “just live.” This means Trevor has to act on the things on his bucket list, like hanging out with real penguins, star in a science fiction movie and actually talk to Sara—the girl at the hospital who smiles at him. With the aid of Plank and Sara, Trevor revises his bucket list to include more important things and takes charge of his illness and his life.” (Adapted from Overdrive description)

First collection of always available digital Book Club titles through the eBook and audiobook reading app Libby. For more information on how to get started with the Libby app, go to our eLibrary page or contact us here for further helpful assistance.

Libby available in Chinese : 中文版的Libby

It is now possible to use OverDrive’s award-winning app, Libby, in Simplified and in Traditional Chinese. If you already use Simplified or Traditional Chinese with your device, Libby will automatically browse, search and display account information in that language now. By changing the default language on your device within the settings, you can then view Libby in your newly chosen language.
现在可以用简体或者繁体中文来使用Overdrive获奖的 app Libby了。 如果您的设备本来就使用简体或者繁体中文的话,Libby会自动使用该语言进行浏览, 搜索或者显示您的账户信息。通过在设置里修改默认语言, 您就可以在Libby上使用所选择的语言。

We also have an eBook collection in Chinese on the OverDrive platform. To access the collection in your browser, go to our Overdrive website (this is a slightly different, alternate option for accessing the Overdrive platform — an alternative to the Libby website). Under the menu across the top left click on ‘Collections’, and then on ‘Chinese’ under ‘Special’. You should end up here Chinese Collection on Overdrive . The same collection is available on the Libby app. To find it on Libby, click on ‘Library’, and then click on ‘Explore’ — it is listed under ‘Guide: Chinese’.
在 Overdrive 平台上,我们也有中文电子书。您可以使用浏览器在 https://wcl.overdrive.com 获取, 在菜单的左上方点击Collections 然后在“Special”下面点击“Chinese” ,您会看到https://wcl.overdrive.com/library/chinese 这个页面。Libby 上也有同样的书集。 途径是:点击“Library”, 然后点击“Explore”, 然后在“Guide: Chinese” 里面就能找到。

You can also read the OverDrive site in Simplified Chinese. Across the very top right of the page there is an arrow next to ‘English’. Click this to change the browsing language to Simplified Chinese.
您也可以在 Overdrive页面里用简体中文阅读。 在页面的最右上方,有一个箭头就在“English” 旁边, 点击该箭头把浏览语言改成简体中文即可。