Long Car Trips in Store? Pack an Audiobook From the Library

Summer car trips aren’t what they used to be. What used to be hours of listening to the radio, reading a book in the backseat or looking out the window have been replaced by all things digital: playing video games non-stop, tooling through Instagram and feeding a stack of DVDs into the player.

But have you thought about audiobooks to pass the travel time? Whether listening solo or with the whole family, they are a great way to “read” even when you’re not on the beach. The Town of Pelham Public Library has several e-resources patrons can use to download books for all ages and in all genres, in addition to CDs and MP3s available for borrowing at the Library. In this Bookmark, we’ll review the Library’s audiobook services and share some staff favorites for those summer trips.

Many Formats, Lots of Listening
Audiobooks come in as many forms as there are audio formats. Patrons can visit the Library to pick up books on CD or MP3 – or borrow a Playaway, which comes pre-loaded with a book. There are also several e-resources that have e-audiobook collections. In many cases, these services operate as mobile apps that allow you to borrow a title even while you’re traveling. Here are some of the services that are available:

• OverDrive: This online library of books has thousands of e-audiobooks as well as e-books. Popular audio titles on OverDrive right now include U is for Undertow by Sue Grafton, The Litigators by John Grisham and 4th of July by James Patterson.
• OneClickdigital: Available e-audiobooks on this service include selections from the American Girl series, Night by Elie Wiesel and Everyman by Philip Roth.
• Playaways: These devices, available for check out at the Library, come with one preloaded book. Available titles include The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini, The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Glass Castle by Jeannette Walls and Founding Brothers by Joseph J. Ellis. The Library also has a selection of “walk talk” Playaway walking tours for Florence, Venice, Rome and Paris, along with short language courses in Italian, French and German.

See the library’s e-resources page, at pelhamlibrary.org/elibrary for specific details about how to use each and follow the links provided there wherever possible. (Going directly to these service’s websites sometimes takes you to a corporate site rather than the location online where you can borrow books.)

And Now for Some Staff Audio Picks!
Bookmark asked the Library staff for some of their favorite CD audiobooks, available on CD at the Library. Here are their suggestions: 

Our Souls at Night by Kent Haruf (Length: Three hours, 28 minutes). This short novel is beautifully written and tells the moving story of two elderly neighbors who form an unusual friendship. Pack a hankie.

Big Magic: Living Beyond Fear by Elizabeth Gilbert (Length: Five hours, six minutes). Eat, Pray, Love author Gilbert narrates this e-audiobook in which she shares her creative process, attitudes, habits and beliefs, enabling her to live and work in a creative, even magical, way.

In Other Words by Jhumpa Lahiri (Length: Six hours, 53 minutes). This memoir, by Pulitzer Prize winner Lahiri, is the story of her love of Italian and what it took for her to be able to write a book in that language. Written originally in Italian, the book was translated into English by Ann Goldstein and is narrated by Lahiri in both Italian and English. Why did Lahiri choose a translator for her book? You’ll have to listen to it to find out.

Disclaimer by Renee Knight (Length: Eight hours, 25 minutes). This psychological thriller focuses on documentary filmmaker Catherine Ravenscroft, who finds an unfamiliar book on her nightstand – and discovers the book is about her and the secret she’s been keeping for years.

The Ghost Map: The Story of London’s Most Terrifying Epidemic and How It Changed Science, Cities, and the Modern World, by Steven Johnson (Length: Eight hours, 38 minutes). This audiobook is about the devastating London cholera epidemic of 1854 and Dr. John Snow’s efforts to discover how the disease was spread.

To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee (Length: 12 hours, 17 minutes). The audiobook of this classic novel, set in a small Alabama town during the Depression, is narrated by Sissy Spacek and provides a great way to spark meaningful conversations when you have teens and adults in the car together. (Also available on Overdrive.)

The Island at the Center of the World: The Epic Story of Dutch Manhattan and the Forgotten Colony That Shaped America by Russell Shorto (Length: 14 hours, 34 minutes). Shorto uses an archive of 12,000 pages to tell the story of the Dutch colony of New Netherland with far more detail than the simple story that the Dutch bought it from Native Americans for $24.

The Third Plate: Field Notes on the Future of Food by Dan Barber (Length: 14 hours, 35 minutes). Barber, chef and co-owner of Manhattan’s Blue Hill and Westchester’s Blue Hill at Stone Barns in Pocantico Hills, narrates this 2014 book about what he calls the “third plate” — a theory of eating that includes the whole farm and how it produces food.

The Omnivore’s Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals by Michael Pollan (Length: 15 hours, 58 minutes). This groundbreaking book examines how we make our food choices and what it portends for the future of our species.

Sunscreen, towels, a few audiobooks and you’re good to go for a great summer!

QUICK READ: Bookmark Comes to the News of Pelham
As of this edition of the monthly Bookmark column from the Library, it will be appearing once a month in the News of Pelham, in addition to continuing to run on pelhamplus.com, on the Library website and in the Library’s monthly e-newsletter. To subscribe to the newsletter, go to pelhamlibrary.org and enter your email address in the subscription box in the upper right hand corner of the home page.

Additionally, Library Events and Library Notes, which had been found at the end of Bookmark, will now be listed separately.