Big Library Read: Flat Broke with Two Goats

When life gets your goat, use your library card. Jennifer McGaha’s debut memoir, Flat Broke with Two Goats, is the Big Library Read, the world’s largest digital book club. From 2 to 16 April, Christchurch City Library users can borrow the eBook or eAudiobook with no wait lists or holds.

Readers can take part in the two-week program by visiting Christchurch City Libraries OverDrive or by downloading the Libby app. Big Library Read is facilitated by OverDrive, the leading platform for eBooks and eAudiobooks from the library. Use #BigLibraryRead on social media for a chance to win a Kobo Aura ONE from OverDrive.

Flat Broke with Two Goats – Jennifer McGaha never expected to own a goat named Merle. Or to be setting Merle up on dates and naming his doeling Merlene. She didn’t expect to be buying organic yogurt for her chickens. She never thought she would be pulling camouflage carpet off her ceiling or rescuing opossums from her barn and calling it “date night.” Most importantly, Jennifer never thought she would only have $4.57 in her bank account.

When Jennifer discovered that she and her husband owed back taxes—a lot of back taxes—her world changed. Now desperate to save money, they foreclosed on their beloved suburban home and moved their family to a one-hundred-year-old cabin in a North Carolina holler. Soon enough, Jennifer’s life began to more closely resemble her Appalachian ancestors than her upper-middle-class upbringing. But what started as a last-ditch effort to settle debts became a journey that revealed both the joys and challenges of living close to the land.

Told with bold wit, unflinching honesty, and a firm foot in the traditions of Appalachia, Flat Broke with Two Goats blends stories of homesteading with the journey of two people rediscovering the true meaning of home.

Great eAudiobooks to listen to on your next Road Trip

Got a summer holiday planned? Does it involve a long road trip? If you answered yes to these questions, then an eAudiobook could be the perfect solution. We have heaps to choose from, from OverDrive or Borrowbox with excellent titles suitable for the whole family.

eAudiobooks for Family Road Trips

List created by ChristchurchLib

eAudiobooks are the perfect listening for long car trips this summer. Stop the backseat questions of “How much further?” or “Are we there yet?”

Ratburger – Will Zoe be able to save her pet rat from the evil Burt from Burt’s Burgers. Brilliantly read by the author David Walliams.

The Bad Beginning – The first in the Series of Unfortunate Events about the three Baudelaire children wonderfully narrated by Tim Curry.

Matilda – The classic story about the child genius Matilda Wormwood with the not so clever parents and the terrifying headmistress Miss Trunchbull, read by award-winning actress Kate Winslet.

Just Annoying! – Is this the right eAudiobook for your road trip? Take the annoying test and find out. Do you ask ‘Are we there yet?’ over and over on long car trips?

The Haunting – Classic gripping thriller by New Zealand author Margaret Mahy.

View Full List »

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eAudiobooks for a Road Trip

List created by ChristchurchLib

eAudiobooks to make a long road trip enjoyable. Tick a book off your list before you even reach your destination.

Heartburn – Sidesplitting novel about the break up of the perfect marriage. Read by Meryl Streep.

Lincoln in the Bardo – Man Booker prize winner 2017, this book is read by a full cast of award-winning actors and musicians.

Ready Player One – Sci-fi adventure in a virtual reality environment, jam-packed with ‘80s nostalgia for popular culture and a treasure hunt.

One Summer – Take a look at the summer of 1927 in America, read by Bill Bryson.

Furiously Happy – A hysterical, ridiculous book about crippling depression and anxiety? That sounds like a terrible idea. But terrible ideas are what Jenny does best.

View Full List

Cold Cures – relax and listen to an eAudiobook

Right at the end of the School Holidays I succumbed to ‘The bug’.

Temperature, shivers, face-ache, sneezing, splutterings, sore throat, several hot-water bottles, over the counter meds and copious amounts of tea/coffee/honey, lemon and ginger combos later, I am now dealing with a more head cold-like scenario.  What really upset me is my diligence in having the Flu Jab appears to have been for nowt!!  Swiftly moving on …

Streaming eyes and almost constant nose-blowing meant that the only source of entertainment I could tolerate was talking-books … Plug in and LISTEN.  So I did.

First offering from OverDrive audiobooks was Round the Horne Movie Spoofs.  In my weakened state I managed several wry smiles – OK 1960s British ‘camp’ humour admittedly, but quite clever for all that although one offering was sufficient as smiling wasn’t helping the face & teeth-ache symptoms!

Second offering was The Captive Queen the story of Eleanor of Aquitaine – wife of two kings – King Louis VII of France and King Henry II of England, and mother of such notables as Richard the Lionheart and King John (of ‘Magna Carta’ fame).  I just thanked my lucky stars that I didn’t live in huge, draughty castles and gratefully placed my hot water bottles in my ‘nest of rest’ set-up for the requisite warmth and comfort.

Third offering I had picked up from the library prior to being ‘felled’ – I persevered, but really CDs don’t work in a sick-room environment.  The constant getting up to change the discs is tiring.  It takes forever to rearrange yourself back to that exact comfortable position you had previously discovered.  But then, adding insult to injury, just as you start to feel relaxed and drowsy, the sonorous tones of the narrator announce that ‘this ends Disc xx’.  Do this manoeuvre fifteen times and you are ready to hurl said CD Player through the bedroom window.  Common sense prevailed as this would have left me both freezing cold and wet as rain lashed down the east coast of the South Island.  Sufficed to say I can remember little of the plot or characters.

Final offering is a BBC Radio dramatization of an Ellis Peters ‘Cadfael’ mystery and will keep me going until I feel ready to open the physical pages of a book.

My listening choices will, in all probability, not be yours, BUT the variety that is available is a fantastic resource to have with just a library card and a Pin/Password.

I must now remember to promote OverDrive and BorrowBox for eAudiobooks as well as Overdrive, Askews, Wheelers and Playaways for eBooks to patrons who are feeling ‘under the weather’.

Meet Libby the new OverDrive app

We are pleased to introduce you to the latest member of the OverDrive family, Libby. Libby is a brand new, easy to use app for OverDrive eBooks and eAudioBooks.
Get Libby for Android, iOS and Windows.

Libby isn’t replacing the OverDrive app, so if you’re a current user of the OverDrive app you can keep on using it. But if you are a new user — or a current OverDrive app user interested in a new reading experience — give Libby a try.

Get help with the Libby app [PDF]

Recent eAudiobooks for kids and teens from BorrowBox

 

Recent eAudiobooks from BorrowBox

 

１５０冊の日本の電子書籍がOverdriveに加わりました

こんにちわ！

Christchurch City Libraries は、この度１５０冊の日本の電子書籍を購入しました。

新しく加わったタイトルには、今まで図書館では置いてなかった日本の近現代文学を中心に、料理本、Dr. Prakash Dheeriya のFinance for Kidsシリーズなどが含まれています。

また、日本語が母国語ではない子供向けの日本語の教材も加わりました（もしお知り合いのお子さんで日本語を学びたい方がいましたら是非教えてあげてください）。これらは今までの図書館の本のコレクションにはなかったものですので、皆さんが活用してくれると大変嬉しく思います！

Overdriveで日本語の本をお探しの場合は、advanced searchからLanguageをJapaneseに選択してください。iPadやタブレットコンピューターなどをお持ちの方は、専用のOverdrive Appをインストールすればこれらの電子書籍を直接ダウンロードできます。電子書籍リーダーの場合は、パソコンにダウンロードしてそこから専用端末にデータを移すことができます（詳しくはこちら）。また、Overdriveを使うにはパスワードが必要です。

Overdriveへのアクセス、電子書籍のダウンロード、図書館のメンバーシップの更新、パスワードの設定など、問題がございましたら何でもお手伝いさせていただきます。直接最寄の図書館へお越しいただくか、電話でお問い合わせください。

OverDrive has gone all multilingual!

One of our busiest and most popular eResources is OverDrive, an eBook and eAudiobook service that lets you download your favourite titles for free. Recently in recognition of the variety of people we have in our fair city of Christchurch we have added a number of titles in other languages. So far there are a number of eBook titles in Chinese, Korean and Tagalog.

These eBooks are for grownups as well as children and cover both fiction and nonfiction titles. What we need to do now is to spread the word about their existence. So if you speak – or are learning – any of these languages then do take the time to explore these eBooks. If you know of people that speak these languages, then please tell them about this fantastic resource. As a library, word of mouth is one of our most important tools to make sure everyone is aware of the many services we offer to those who are not native English speakers.

Read Jo’s post in Korean about the Korean eBooks.

 

Stig @ the Library comes to Christchurch

Kids at Queenspark School were super lucky to get visit from a rock star this week. Stig Wemyss, one of the most popular narrators of audio books for kids, visited the school as part of his ‘Stig at the Library’ NZ tour.

Stig Wemyss is an actor, writer and the voice behind heaps of children’s audio books.  If you have borrowed kid’s audiobooks from the library before you’re almost certain to have heard him read you a story that had you laughing out loud. He has narrated stories by the funniest authors around, including Paul Jennings and Andy Griffiths.

Stig Wemyss at Queenspark School

According to Stig, narrators are the ‘rock stars of kids books,’ and he certainly showed us why. He treated the kids of Queenspark School to an hour of silliness and laughter.  He showed us what it takes to be a narrator and got heaps of the kids up the front with him to try his audition techniques.

He read one of Andy Griffith’s short stories from his book Just Stupid and had everyone engrossed in the story. It is no wonder that Stig is so popular because he is a natural performer who brings Andy Griffiths’ and Paul Jennings’ crazy, silly, hilarious stories to life.

Stig has been touring NZ to promote Borrow Box, a great new eResource that libraries around the country, including Christchurch City Libraries, now have available for customers.

With Borrow Box you can borrow and download eAudiobooks to your computer or mobile device whenever you like, wherever you like. There are heaps of eAudiobooks to choose from, including books by Andy Griffiths and Terry Denton, Jacqueline Wilson, Enid Blyton, Morris Gleitzman and Jackie French.

Check out Borrow Box now and download an eAudiobook read by Stig Wemyss.  I guarantee it will have you laughing out loud.

The hills are alive with the sound of BorrowBox!

This world we live in is full of noise. Most of that noise is jarring to the nerves and battering to the soul. Now you can escape all that clamour and disappear into the aural bliss of your favourite book. Let me introduce to you BorrowBox – your next escape plan from the reality of the world’s woes. It is an eAudiobook platform that allows you to download some of the world leading titles to your MP3 compatible mobile device (which is most of them) or computer. Just have a looksy at these titles…

Above is just a brief taste of the hundreds of titles that can be downloaded from BorrowBox. Have a play and download one of these titles today for your own enjoyment. You may not be an audio convert yet – but the ease in which you can use this service may bring you into the fold!