Traveling for the Holidays?

If you’ll be traveling by car or by plane over the holidays, you’re probably already thinking about how to keep the kids entertained during the trip. Of course, you can sing along in a car to Christmas songs, but why not try listening to an audiobook together? You can choose one that’s an appropriate length for the trip, and it will help the time fly by! We have some audiobooks on CD at the library, but there are many more available to download to your phone or other device on the Libby app through the Indiana Digital Download Center.

Here are some great holiday stories for kids that would provide a wonderful listening experience. If you need help with the download process, just call the library and we can talk you through it.

 When Santa Fell to Earth by Cornelia Funke  Bah! Humbug! by Michael Rosen A Ghost Tale for Christmas by Mary Pope Osborne

 The Best Christmas Pageant Ever by Barbara Robinson  Christmas in the Forest and Other Stories   A Season of Gifts by Richard Peck

 A Boy Called Christmas by Matt Haig  Deck the Halls, We're Off the Walls by Dan Gutman  Christmas in Camelot by Mary Pope Osborne

Happy listening and safe travels!

The #BigLibraryRead with Overdrive and Libby!

Check out November’s Big Library Read! This virtual book club run by Overdrive allows thousands of library patrons like you to check out the same e-book at the same time without any holds or wait lists!

This November, join thousands of other Overdrive and Libby users as we read Five Total Strangers by Natalie D. Richards together! This wild, heart-pounding thriller is sure to keep those (virtual) pages turning. So, cozy up with a new book as the weather gets colder and get reading! Use the hashtag #BigLibraryRead on social media for a chance to win Libby swag, a tablet, and signed books by the author!

If you are new to Overdrive or Libby and would like assistance in setting up your account, please contact the Aurora or Dillsboro Public Libraries or speak to a librarian. We’re here to help!

Together We Read

For the next two weeks (February 10-24), you have the opportunity to participate in an online community of readers all reading Love Lettering by Kate Clayborn. This title is available through The Indiana Digital Download Center (IDCC) with no waitlists or holds! It’s available as both an ebook and audio-book, and we also have print copies at the library. The IDCC also has special features like an author interview, discussion questions, and the chance to participate in discussion with other readers.

This romance is a perfect choice for February!

One of the most beloved romantic comedies of 2020, Love Lettering is a heart-melting and touching story that fans of Tessa Bailey, Jen DeLuca, and Emily Henry cannot miss. In this warm and witty romance from acclaimed author Kate Clayborn, one little word puts a woman’s business—and her heart—in jeopardy.

Meg Mackworth’s hand-lettering skill has made her famous as the Planner of Park Slope, designing custom journals for her New York City clientele. She has another skill too: reading signs that other people miss. Knowing the upcoming marriage of Reid Sutherland and his polished fiancée was doomed to fail is one thing, but weaving a secret word of warning into their wedding program is another. Meg may have thought no one would spot it, but she hadn’t counted on sharp-eyed, pattern-obsessed Reid.

A year later, Reid has tracked Meg down to find out how she knew that his meticulously planned future was about to implode. But with a looming deadline and a bad case of creative block, Meg doesn’t have time for Reid’s questions—unless he can help her find her missing inspiration. As they gradually open up to each other, both try to ignore a deepening connection between them. But the signs are there—irresistible, indisputable, urging Meg to heed the messages Reid is sending her, before it’s too late.

Libby: One Tap App

The power of an app is almighty. However, if the app is too complicated to use, more likely than not, we’ll delete it. There are thousands of apps for social media, a million for gaming, and hundreds for reading. While Overdrive was the original reading app for the Aurora Public Library digital library patrons to use, we’ve been introduced to a new app called Libby, which was created by the same company that created Overdrive.

Libby is a simple to use reading app. While Overdrive has many tabs you have to click to do one simple thing, Libby is a one tap app. Once you download Libby, and login using your library card number and pin, you can start looking for titles on the very next page. Libby takes away several steps that Overdrive has and simplifies it. You can do so many amazing things with Libby!

You can add more than one library card.

You can listen to audiobooks at your own pace.

You can adjust your reading settings (font, size, space).

You can filter your Preferences to see books for specific age groups (kids, teens, adults).

You can borrow eBooks from our library and send them to your kindle!

You can change the lending period on the titles you borrow.

You can borrow magazines, eBooks, and audio books as well as videos!

The only downfall to Libby? She’s not available on as many devices as Overdrive is. Libby is only available on google Play, Apple Store, and Microsoft store. However, the creators of the app are working diligently to make Libby more compatible with other devices as well. Don’t worry though, you can set Libby to send eBooks to your kindle and still be able to read on your kindle!

Roald Dahl: #1 Storyteller

Roald Dahl was a spy, a pilot, a chocolate historian and an inventor!

He was also a beloved author of many original and entertaining children’s books.

Roald Dahl was born in Wales on September 13, 1916 to Harald Dahl and Sofie Hesselberg. His parents named him after the first man to reach the South Pole, Roald Amundsen.

His mother sent him to several boarding schools in which many bizarre events happened and later were written in his autobiography, Boy. At one of his boarding schools, the pupils were invited to test chocolate bars which helped inspire Roald Dahl’s Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. 

His lust to travel took him from Canada to East Africa until the start of World War II where he enlisted into the Royal Air Force at 23 years old. After receiving severe injuries in the Western Desert, and after recovering from those injuries in Alexandria, he returned to the fight by taking part in the Battle of Athens. Afterwards, he became a spy for MI6.

In 1961, he wrote James and the Giant Peach, which was quickly followed by Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. He also wrote several screenplays and adult novels. In 1970, a year before the film Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory was released, he published Fantastic Mr. Fox

In the early 80s, he published The Twits, The BFG, and The WitchesMatilda was published in 1988 and Esio Trot in 1990.

Many of his works have been adapted as films and will forever entertain children and adults for generations to come!

To help us celebrate Roald Dahl, stop by the library on Roald Dahl Day (September 13) and check out some his works and adaptations!

 

Tessa Dare: Girl Meets Duke

Who is Tessa Dare?

Well, she’s a New York Times and USA Today bestselling author of more than twenty historical romances. She is “a librarian by training and a book lover at heart”. She lives in Southern California with her husband, two children, and many kitties.

What does she write?

Tessa Dare writes amazing historical romances that are just to die for. She mixes emotion, love, sensuality, romance, and drama together and creates amazing stories and characters that will stay on your mind for years to come! Her stories are generally set in the regency time period (1811-1820), so no outrageously poofy dresses or white wigs.

Why is she different than other historical romance authors?

She creates unique heroines who engages in ‘unladylike’ pursuits from paleontology to beer-making. She also dreams up strong-willed heroic men who find their hearts captured by these heroines.

What’s Girl Meets Duke?

Girl Meets Duke is a new series Tessa Dare is writing that can also be read as stand-alone. Each book features a new couple and a new story line. Each male character is a Duke while the ladies each venture into a new world of sin….romance…and love. So far there are three published works with another title in the works!

Can I check them out?

Luckily for you, the Aurora Public Library has purchased them in both hardback and eBook! The Duchess Deal and The Governess Game can be found in our adult fiction in the D’s. The Wallflower Wager can be found on our New Releases shelf.

 

Eloisa James: The Wildes of Lindow Castle

Who is Eloisa James?

Eloisa James is a New York Times and USA Today bestselling author, a mother and a wife. When Eloisa isn’t writing novels, she is a Shakespeare professor.

What does Eloisa James write?

Eloisa James writes historical romances. Occasionally, you can find some Shakespearean themes within her stories.

Why is she different than other historical romance authors?

Eloisa James uses her own experiences as a mother in her stories. From a miscarriage to her own daughter’s problems as an infant, she connects each of her stories to herself in some unique way.

What’s The Wildes of Lindow Castle?

The Wildes of Lindow Castle is a series Eloisa James has began in 2017. The series follows the large family of the Duke of Lindow and is set in a castle. Think of Modern Family with a little of Downton Abbey mixed in. The stories are all set in the Georgian time period; yes, that means big wigs and poofy skirts! This also marks the beginning of the celebrity culture due to the printing press.

Where can I read them?

Print books by Eloisa James can be found in the Large Print collection or the Adult Fiction area under “J” for James. There are even more choices in our digital library.

 

Gena Showalter

 

In today’s literary world, so many authors are venturing out and doing different genres and doing both young adult and adult books. Authors from Nick Hornby (About a Boy and Slam) to Meg Cabot (Princess Diaries and Overbite) to Richelle Mead (Vampire Academy and Georgina Kincaid). More and more authors are venturing out of their comfort zones and tackling a new category, whether they originally wrote young adult and are now writing adult or vice versa.

Gena Showalter first came known to the literary world with a contemporary romance duology called Imperia. She eventually went on to write a widely known and loved series called Lords of the Underworld. This popular series has 15 books, 3 novellas, one spin off series, and two upcoming publications!

She is a New York Times and USA Today bestselling author with over thirty books in paranormal and contemporary romances. She also has 4 finished YA series and just released the first in a new YA series called The Forest of Good and Evil

Her first foray into the YA world was with her series, IntertwinedThis series follows sixteen year old, Aden Stone, who has four human souls within him. All four souls have a unique power such as time travel, raising the dead, possessing another human, or telling the future. Her second YA series, The White Rabbit Chronicles, a unique retelling of Alice in Wonderland, has taken her readers to a whole new world and created a loyal fan-base from the YA community. My personal favorite of her books is her YA series, Everlife, is a unique story like one you’ve never read before about what happens after your First Death!

 

Rainy Day Reads

April showers brought the May flowers, but it’s been pretty rainy still. With the weather as fickle as it’s been, I don’t want to leave my driveway. With OverDrive, it’s possible to lounge around my house all day without ever running out of things to read, watch, or listen to.

Here are some just-added items from the Indiana Digital Download Center:

Compulsion by Martina Boone

The Dysasters by P.C. Cast and Kristin Cast

Captive Heart by Glynnis Campbell

Rage Becomes Her by Soraya Chemaly

Boy Erased by Garrard Conley

The Spy and the Traitor by Ben Macintyre

Two Can Keep a Secret by Karen M. McManus

Come Find Me by Megan Miranda

A Sucky Love Story by Brittani Louise Taylor

The Year We Left Home by Jean Thompson

Watch Us Rise by Renée Watson and Ellen Hagan

The Silent Invader by Thomas Wood

Place these upcoming releases on hold to read in your blanket fort!

Dead Man’s Mistress by David Housewright

Two Weeks by Karen Kingsbury

Middlegame by Seanan McGuire

Murder in the City of Liberty by Rachel McMillan

The Peacock Emporium by Jojo Moyes

Tightrope by Amanda Quick

The Five by Hallie Rubenhold

Neon Prey by John Sandford

Emily Eternal by M.G. Wheaton

So many books, so little time! Do you have a go-to rainy day read? My favorite might have to be Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë if only for the opening paragraphs:

“There was no possibility of taking a walk that day. We had been wandering, indeed, in the leafless shrubbery an hour in the morning; but since dinner (Mrs. Reed, when there was no company, dined early) the cold winter wind had brought with it clouds so sombre, and a rain so penetrating, that further out-door exercise was now out of the question.

I was glad of it: I never liked long walks, especially on chilly afternoons: dreadful to me was the coming home in the raw twilight, with nipped fingers and toes, and a heart saddened by the chidings of Bessie, the nurse, and humbled by the consciousness of my physical inferiority to Eliza, John, and Georgiana Reed.”

Happy Reading!

Gothic Classics

We all love classics. Whether it’s Pride and Prejudice or it’s the Great Gatsby, it doesn’t quite matter. Gothic Classics are the classics that combines fiction,  horror, death, and even romance at times. Here’s a list of some amazing Gothic Classics that you should read if you enjoy horror!

Jane Austen’s first novel—published posthumously in 1818—tells the story of Catherine Morland and her dangerously sweet nature, innocence, and sometime self-delusion. Though Austen’s fallible heroine is repeatedly drawn into scrapes while vacationing at Bath and during her subsequent visit to Northanger Abbey, Catherine eventually triumphs, blossoming into a discerning woman who learns truths about love, life, and the heady power of literature. The satirical novel pokes fun at the Gothic novel while earnestly emphasizing caution to the female sex.-Goodreads

As a fan of Jane Austen, I was surprised to discover this one! I personally haven’t read Northanger Abbey, but even if it is poking fun at the Gothic novels, it is still considered a Gothic classic!

Last night I dreamt I went to Manderley again . . .

The novel begins in Monte Carlo, where our heroine is swept off her feet by the dashing widower Maxim de Winter and his sudden proposal of marriage. Orphaned and working as a lady’s maid, she can barely believe her luck. It is only when they arrive at his massive country estate that she realizes how large a shadow his late wife will cast over their lives–presenting her with a lingering evil that threatens to destroy their marriage from beyond the grave. –Goodreads

Who hasn’t heard of Daphne Du Maurier?! She is the face of all romantic Gothic classics! So many people prefer Rebecca over all the other classics and if you read it, you’ll discover why!

 

Orphaned as a child, Jane has felt an outcast her whole young life. Her courage is tested once again when she arrives at Thornfield Hall, where she has been hired by the brooding, proud Edward Rochester to care for his ward Adèle. Jane finds herself drawn to his troubled yet kind spirit. She falls in love. Hard.

But there is a terrifying secret inside the gloomy, forbidding Thornfield Hall. Is Rochester hiding from Jane? Will Jane be left heartbroken and exiled once again?-Goodreads

Once again we come across another classic that I didn’t realize would fall into the Gothic classic genre! Though, it has everything needed to be considered a Gothic classic!

Wuthering Heights, first published in 1847, the year before the author’s death at the age of thirty, endures today as perhaps the most powerful and intensely original novel in the English language. The epic story of Catherine and Heathcliff plays out against the dramatic backdrop of the wild English moors, and presents an astonishing metaphysical vision of fate and obsession, passion and revenge. -Goodreads

Another Bronte on the list! I guess they have something in common! Interesting tidbit I wasn’t aware of: this is Emily Bronte‘s only novel.

Enthralled by his own exquisite portrait, Dorian Gray exchanges his soul for eternal youth and beauty. Influenced by his friend Lord Henry Wotton, he is drawn into a corrupt double life, indulging his desires in secret while remaining a gentleman in the eyes of polite society. Only his portrait bears the traces of his decadence. The Picture of Dorian Gray was a succès de scandale. Early readers were shocked by its hints at unspeakable sins, and the book was later used as evidence against Wilde at the Old Bailey in 1895.-Goodreads

Though I’ve never read this book, reading the summary (placed above in italics) makes it go onto my to-be-read shelf!

The scientist Victor Frankenstein, obsessed with possessing the secrets of life, creates a new being from the bodies of the dead. But his creature is a twisted, gruesome parody of a man who, rejected for his monstrous appearance, sets out to destroy his maker.

Mary Shelley‘s chilling Gothic tale, conceived after a nightmare in 1816 when she was only eighteen, became a modern myth. It is a disturbing and dramatic exploration of birth and death, creation and destruction, and one of the most iconic horror stories of all time.-Goodreads

I haven’t read Frankenstein but I knew Mary Shelley‘s story would land her on this list!

First published in 1897, Dracula by Bram Stoker has become the standard against which all other vampire stories are compared and the inspiration for countless film and stage adaptations. Indeed, the name Dracula has been synonymous with the Undead for at least a century, and the original novel still has the power to chill. Come then to Castle Dracula, hidden in the forbidding peaks of the Carpathian Mountains, where an undying creature of evil casts his sights on unsuspecting England. Voyage on the doomed ship Demeter as it carries a monster out of ancient superstition in search of new life and new blood. Tremble as first one woman, then another succumbs to the unholy thirst of the nosferatu, and as a small band of men and women, horrified by the supernatural forces arrayed against them, risk their lives and their very souls to oppose the evil known only as… Dracula.”-Goodreads

As a fan of vampires, I have to say that Bram Stoker‘s story of Dracula is amazing!

A single person—but with two personalities: one that’s noble and kind and another that’s pure, repulsive evil. Robert Louis Stevenson’s engrossing masterpiece about the dual nature of man—and a good doctor whose thirst for knowledge has tragic consequences—serves up all the suspense and satisfying chills one expects from the best horror and science fiction.-Goodreads

This story is amazing and unique in every way! I’m not surprised that this book appears on lists of Gothic classics.

 

All the books listed above are literary masterpieces, which is why they are now known as classics! Though I’ve personally only read a few on this list, I know many people who enjoy them all! They are all available at APLD!

Comment below and let me know what Gothic Classics I missed and which one is your favorite!

 

Carpe Librum!

 

P.S. Thanks to Goodreads for providing the italicized summaries for this blog!