Travel the World with Your Library Resources

Despite the limited possibilities of a real escape due to the ongoing pandemic, thanks to the Internet and resources offered by your library, you can explore the world and enjoy travel – virtually!

Lately, the travel industry has cooperated with government agencies to create a wonderfully appealing virtual experience for travelers who might enjoy exploring the world from the comfort of their homes. 

Explore and discover five National Parks, a series Hidden Worlds of the National Parks created by the National Park Service with Google Arts & Culture.

You will find even more National Parks to tour virtually here.

Travel book publishers were also exploring beyond travel guide books. Here is their new product—a series called Passenger.

Greece: Passenger for Explorers of the World is the second book in the series, tailored to the tastes of armchair travelers. It concentrates on the best writing, photography, and arts of the region. Greece can be reserved in print for Curbside Pickup, or you can check out the ebook on hoopla.

America the Beautiful by the National Geographic Society is a book of gorgeous photography that celebrates the unique beauty of all the 50 states. The book offers an alternative way to see the country in the time of limited travel. It is a gratifying and very worthwhile visual journey.

Blue Sky Kingdom: An Epic Family Journey to the Heart of Himalayas by Bruce Kirby shares the author’s account of a journey that his family undertook, chartering an absolutely new and unfamiliar territory by travelling to a distant Tibetan locale, staying at the Buddhist monastery, and backpacking in the Himalayas at high altitudes.

The book is a mixture of local history, culture, travelogue, and personal experience, and very well reviewed. You can reserve it in print for Curbside Pickup or check out the ebook on hoopla.

The Lost Pianos of Siberia by Pamela Roberts is aware of and inspired by the huge role that music, and pianos in particular, played in Russian culture. The British travel writer follows the ways pianos travelled from major Russian cities to distant Russian locales, and explores and portrays Siberia – the part of Russia that has long intrigued foreigners, though it is not much travelled and understood.

The book combines a travelogue with Russian history and culture, as well as music history. You will find a New York Times review here. Reserve the book in print for Curbside Pickup or read the ebook on Overdrive or hoopla. 

Scandinavian Noir: In Pursuit of a Mystery by Wendy Lesser is another oeuvre by the author – a fan of Scandinavian mysteries – who has been sharing her enthusiasm and reviews with the public for almost four decades. 

Her deep interest in Scandinavian mysteries and voracious reading of numerous books written by writers from Sweden, Norway, and Denmark lead to her deep knowledge of those countries: their geography, history, culture, social norms, and laws.

When she traveled to Scandinavia, the author said she found it “even lovelier than she expected.”

Part literary criticism and part travelogue, the book was well regarded in The New York Times review.

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As always, these books are available through the library catalog, either in print or digital format, sometimes both. 

Digital downloads are available through Overdrive/Libby or hoopla with your library card. 

To obtain a print copy, please carefully read the instructions for ordering and Curbside Pickup.

A Virtual Garden Tour

Take a (virtual) tour through some of the most beautiful gardens of the world! 

Though the weather might not be well-suited for a garden tour right now, with books borrowed or downloaded from the library, you can enjoy armchair travelling from the safety of your home, take pleasure in looking through books with gorgeous color illustrations and photographs of splendidly designed gardens from all over the world, and learn about the people who designed them.

A Garden for All Seasons: Marjorie Merriweather Post’s Hillwood by Kate Markert is the first book on the history and design of Hillwood, the estate of Marjorie Post, the businesswoman and the heir of General Foods, Inc.

The gardens were designed with the idea of planting a very diverse range of plants and trees, thus providing something flowering or simply beautiful to look at for every season. The new commissioned photography for the book perfectly reflects the beauty of the garden.

For Rachel Lambert Mellon – best known as Bunny Mellon – plants and gardens have been a passion for all her long life (1910-2014), and she was really remarkable with garden designs. Best known for her redesign of the White House Rose Garden, she planned grounds designs for all the multiple estates her family owned in various parts of the world. She also designed a couple of gardens for the celebrated French couturier, Hubert de Givenchy, and several other gardens of the White House.

The Gardens of Bunny Mellon by Linda Holden includes spectacular newly commissioned photographs of some of Mellon’s gardens, as well as her sketches and watercolors.

In American Gardens, Monty Don, an eminent British horticulturist, travels across the US with celebrated photographer Derry Moore, exploring the country’s iconic as well as lesser-known gardens. Best known as a presenter of the BBC gardening television series, Mr. Don did one of the episodes this past year on American gardens; the book complements the series, and includes some previously unpublished photographs. 

The Garden Tourist: 120 Destination Gardens and Nurseries in the Northeast by Jana Milbocker describes 120 botanical gardens, historic estates, and nurseries from Southern Maine to Pennsylvania. 

665 luscious photos make this book more than a guidebook; it offers aesthetic enjoyment of horticultural colors and designs.

For those wishing to explore outside North America, the library has the following offerings:

Japanese Gardens: Kyoto by photographer Akira Nakata showcases 96 stunning Japanese gardens of Kyoto. These awe-inspiring works of art date between the 13^th and the 17^th centuries.

A recognizable aspect of Japanese culture, gardens embody a philosophy about the relationship between humanity and nature through seamless incorporation of living elements with man-made design and the surroundings (such as buildings).

Not to be missed, especially if Kyoto is a travel destination.

Everyday Monet: A Giverny-inspired Gardening and Lifestyle Guide to Living Your Best Impressionist Life by Aileen Bordman will take you to France, to the third most-visited site in the country: Giverny, a commune in Normandy best known for the location of an estate that was once home to Claude Monet, one of the founders of the French Impressionism.

Gorgeously illustrated with photos of Monet’s spectacular garden designs, reproductions of his paintings, and filled with instructions, the book becomes a practical guide for creating a lifestyle inspired by Monet’s works.

As always, these books are available through the library catalog, either in print or digital format, sometimes both. 

Digital downloads are available through Overdrive/Libby with your library card. To obtain a print copy, please carefully read the instructions for reserving and Curbside Pickup.

New in Nonfiction: Spine-Tingling True Spy Stories

If you find spy stories thrilling and captivating, the Abbot Public Library has recommendations from our newest collection additions.

Our previous post on nonfiction spy stories introduced brilliant British historian and writer Ben Macintyre. His series of books on 20^th century espionage were very highly regarded.

Agent Sonya: Moscow’s Most Daring Wartime Spy is Ben Macintyre’s newest book, very much anticipated by his numerous readers and fans. It is a story of the most celebrated female spy (alias Agent Sonya), who had worked for the Soviet Union. Her long (1907-2000), very effective espionage work, full of many accomplishments, and her colorful personal life make her an excellent subject for a nonfiction spy thriller. Ben Macintyre has excelled at creating a narrative centered around this very complex and extraordinary person. You can find a review in The New York Times here. Reserve a print copy for Curbside Pickup or check it out in ebook format on Overdrive.

Atomic Spy: The Dark Lives of Klaus Fuchs by Nancy Greenspan is a biography of one of the most infamous spies of the Cold War, another true-life story of a spy who belonged to the same ring as Agent Sonya. 

A brilliant scientist and a Nazi fighter, Klaus Fuchs immigrated to Great Britain and soon joined the atomic bomb research project… at the same time handing the materials over to the Russians. Unlike previous biographies of Klaus Fuchs, Greenspan’s book features a biographical account of a very complex character, portraying him as a passionate person with very strong ideological beliefs that motivated him to share secrets with Cold War enemies of the British and Americans. Very well researched due to access to numerous German, British, and American archives, as well as Fuchs’s correspondences, the story, full of tension, captures readers entirely. Here is The New York Times review.

In addition to spies, the library also owns books on American spymasters and the Intelligence Agency itself, their accomplishments and failures:

Dead Doubles: The Extraordinary Worldwide Hunt for One of the Cold War’s Most Notorious Spy Rings by Trevor Barnes is an incredible story of the CIA and the British Intelligence Service cooperation in cracking the most damaging spy ring of the Cold War in the 1960s. Barnes uses tools and his skills as a fiction writer to make this real-life story as fast-paced and compelling as fiction.

The Quiet Americans: Four CIA Spies at the Dawn of the Cold War: A Tragedy in Three Acts by Scott Anderson, war correspondent and writer, is a story of the spying world during WWII and, later, the Cold War, through the eyes and lives of four remarkable, very talented American spies who helped shape the earliest CIA operations. Read The New York Times review here.

The Spymasters: How the CIA Directors Shape History and the Future by Chris Whipple is a fascinating behind-the-scenes story of the CIA recounted through the actions of its directors. The book is well-documented and based on interviews with every living CIA director. It delivers an informative history of the agency, describing how it works and what the director’s job is.

Reflecting on some of the operational failures, the author proposes some reforms to improve the agency’s performance. Here is a NYT review.

As always, these books can be reserved through the library, either in print or digital format, and sometimes both. 

Digital downloads are available through Overdrive/the Libby app with your library card. 

To obtain a print copy, please carefully read the instructions for Curbside Pickup.

Dig Up Some Facts About Prehistoric Creatures for National Fossil Day!

As part of Earth Science Week, National Fossil Day was created to promote the importance of preserving fossils. The National Park Service, the American Geosciences Institute, and hundreds of other museums, institutions, organizations, and other groups provide activities to help the public understand the scientific and educational purposes of fossils. Abbot Public Library has a number of items in the library catalog, on Overdrive/the Libby app, and on hoopla for all ages that relate to fossils of dinosaurs and other prehistoric creatures.

Here are a sampling of books for kids on fossils, paleontology, dinosaurs, and other prehistoric creatures: 

also available on hoopla

also available on hoopla

Also check out the Pebble Plus Dinosaurs books, which includes 4D titles featuring different species of dinosaurs, including T. Rex, Velociraptor, Apatosaurus, Triceratops, Stegosaurus, and others.

For adults who would like to learn more about these subjects, check out the following items about dinosaurs and other prehistoric creatures, including humans! 

also available on hoopla

in print format from other NOBLE libraries

Part of the Life of the Past series

also available on hoopla

Check out these feature films and documentaries on hoopla for various age groups…

… or reserve DVDs for Curbside Pickup (currently with no charge!).

For more information about fossils, paleontology, dinosaurs, and prehistoric animals, browse through the items in these collections and searches: 

• Dinosaurs and prehistoric creatures on Overdrive/the Libby app
• Nature – Fossils Collection on hoopla 
• Juvenile Science & Nature – Fossils Collection on hoopla
• Paleontology items on hoopla

New in Nonfiction: Books on WWII

World War Two ended in Europe on May 7^th, 1945. In the Pacific, Japan formally surrendered four months later, on September 2^nd, ending the war in Asia. This year, as the world celebrated the 75^th anniversary of the end of WWII, numerous books on the history of the war were published.

In May, we posted a list of recently published books on military history and WWII in Europe. Here are some recent books about the Pacific front. 

Ian Toll’s Twilight of the Gods: War in the Western Pacific 1944-1945 is the final volume of the trilogy on WWII in the Pacific. It begins with a historical meeting between President Roosevelt and major American military leaders, during which strategy and tactics for the rest of the war against Japan were decided.

Other books in the Pacific War Trilogy by Ian Toll are Pacific Crucible: War at Sea in the Pacific, 1941-1942 and The Conquering Tide: War in the Pacific Islands, 1942-1944 (in print and ebook format). It took the author nine years after the publication of the first volume to finish the trilogy. 

All books were extremely well researched, informed by primary documents and official reports, and powerfully written; they have all earned high praise. You can read a New York Times review here.

Operation Vengeance by Dan Hampton (in large print and ebook format) recounts a very secret US operation to assassinate Admiral Yamamoto, a Japanese admiral who was a major force behind the attack on Pearl Harbor. The US Air Force pilots carried out this mission.

The author, a decorated combat pilot who served 20 years in the US Air Force and flew numerous combat missions, became a military historian and writer. He is very well-equipped to recreate the dramatic events in the air moment-by-moment.

The Race of Aces: WWII’s Elite Airmen and the Epic Battle to Become the Masters of the Sky by John Bruning (in print and ebook format) is another recent book about the battles in the Pacific theatre. In this one, a group of five American pilots, inspired and motivated by a legendary WWI pilot Eddie Rickenbacker, started a wild race for the title of America’s Greatest Fighter Pilot during combat against the Japanese air force.

Chris Wallace’s and Lesley Blume’s books examine the bombings of Japanese cities in August 1945. 

Wallace’s Countdown 1945: The Extraordinary Story of the Atomic Bomb and the 116 Days that Changed the World (print, ebook, and e-audiobook) explores how and why the decision to use the weapon of mass destruction was made.

Blume’s Fallout: The Hiroshima Cover-up and the Reporter Who Revealed it to the World (print and ebook) is the story about the aftermath of the bombing, and about American journalist John Hersey, who gained access to Hiroshima in 1946 to see for himself and report on the horrible after-effects of radiation. You can read the New York Times’s splendid review here.

As always, all these titles are able to be checked out in multiple formats. You can acquire digital books through Overdrive/Libby using your library card. 

If you prefer books in print, you can reserve them for pick-up with our Curbside Service. Please carefully read our instructions on how to reserve titles and set up an appointment to pick them up, once all your items come in.

Abbot Public Library’s Yoga Storytime Coming To YouTube September 1st!

Regular attendees of the Story Time Yoga program that took place in the Abbot Public Library will be thrilled to know we will now be offering the program online!

Lindsey Kravitz will be recording her half hour yoga event, and it will be posted on the Abbot Public Library’s brand new YouTube Channel this coming Tuesday, September 1st at 10:30 am! Feel free to subscribe now to the YouTube channel so you will be notified when the first video gets added. All the other September children’s programs will be held this way as well. For a full list of September events, check out the library’s website.

We hope you come join Lindsey Kravitz for a fun online yoga story time with songs, books, poses, and quiet time. The program is 30 minutes and works well for babies, toddlers, and preschool-aged children accompanied by their caregivers. Watch the video on September 1^st on the new Abbot Public Library YouTube Channel!

This program is supported by the Oliver P. Killam, Jr. Fund.

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If you want even more yoga than the half hour program, check out the yoga materials for kids you can check out online on Overdrive/Libby app or hoopla, or reserve copies of physical items for Curbside pickup. Learn how to breathe like a bear, join Babar with yoga for elephants, or reserve a DVD (with now charge!) with yoga in space!

Sneak Peak at our September Virtual Programs!

We are pleased to announce we will be offering more virtual programs in September, via Zoom and the new Abbot Public Library YouTube Channel!

In the past few months, we have offered “Story Time A-Go-Go” with Debbie Leibowitz. Each week, Debbie writes a new story and posts a video of her reading it on YouTube to entertain and educate children. Check out this week’s video below:

We also offered “Music with Dara” on Fridays, and are happy to say Dara VanRemoortel, an early childhood music specialist, will be returning in September to offer her virtual program of songs and visual props. Check out these videos featuring original music by Dara!

These two programs will be continuing in September, but the videos will now be compiled on the Abbot Public Library’s brand new YouTube Channel, along with a couple new-to-the-screen children’s presenters and a familiar monthly adult program!

Joining Debbie and Dara for the first time online are some faces you will recognize from the children’s programs we offered inside the library. Yoga Story Time with Lindsey Kravitz will be a half-hour video geared towards babies, toddlers, and preschoolers. And, returning to the library’s lineup is Songs with Spencer! Spencer and his orange monster friend, Bowie, will share stories and tunes to get kids singing and dancing!

For adult programs, the library’s monthly Poetry Salon will be continuing virtually! Marblehead poet Claire Keyes will be discussing the poetry of Terrance Hayes via Zoom! Stay tuned for details on accessing this meeting on the Abbot Public LIbrary website. 

In the meantime, you can prepare for the Salon by reserving the featured book, American Sonnets for My Past and Future Assassin, in print for Curbside Pickup, or listen to the audiobook on hoopla with no wait!

Visit the Abbot Public Library’s website News & Events page for more information on these programs! 

Full STEAM Ahead to Children’s Learning!

Get kids ready for the upcoming school year with STEAM materials they can check out online or in print for Curbside Pickup with Abbot Public Library! If you are new to our Curbside Pickup Service, please carefully read these instructions for how to reserve items and set up an appointment to pick them up after they come in.

Hoopla’s STEAM Lookbook Collection has a number of items for students of all levels. STEAM Lab For Kids not only has science projects, but Technology, Engineering, Art, and Math activities as well. The book explores the connection between art and other STEM subjects, giving kids tools for problem solving and critical thinking. Check out even more fun projects in Math Art and Drawing Games for Kids which combine artistic skills with STEM concepts, such as making pixel art with graph paper. Overdrive also has fun STEM activity ebooks such as STEM Lab, in which you can learn concepts by racing wind up cars or making a homemade guitar.

A similar book in print format to reserve for Curbside Pickup is 100 Easy STEAM Activities: Awesome Hands-On Projects for Aspiring Artists and Engineers. Included are games and projects to help kids learn concepts in science, technology, engineering, art, and math such as shaving cream rain clouds or a pool noodle obstacle course. 

For young science lovers, the Bill Nye the Science Guy DVDs may be just the thing to help kids learn about friction, animals, light optics, pressure, energy, and more! During Curbside Pickup service, there is no checkout fee for DVDs, so you can explore science with Bill Nye for free! Some fictional characters that can help kids learn about STEM concepts are Ada Twist, Scientist (in print and on Overdrive/Libby app and hoopla) and Rosie Revere, Engineer (in print and on Overdrive/Libby app and hoopla).

These are just a few of the library’s offerings! Browse through hoopla’s STEAM Lookbook Collection or search for more online science, technology, engineering, art, and math items for kids on hoopla and Overdrive/the Libby app, or reserve physical titles through the library catalog for Curbside Pickup. Read about how the Curbside Service works here.

Read. Think. Vote.

2020 is a big election year and as we get closer to November you might become more curious about voting, voting rights, and civic engagement. So, if any of those topics catch your interest, check out the YA books below, some of which might even be on your school summer reading lists!

*All book descriptions are from the publisher.

Votes of Confidence: A Young Person’s Guide to American Elections (2nd Edition) by Jeff Fleischer

Every two years, media coverage of American elections turns into a horse-race story about who’s leading the polls and who said what when. Give young adult readers clear explanations about how our election process actually works, why it matters, and how they can become involved. Using real-world examples and anecdotes, this book provides readers with thorough, nonpartisan explanations about primaries, the electoral college, checks and balances, polls, fundraising, and more. Updated with statistics and details from the 2018 elections, the revised second edition will prepare the next generation of voters for what is sure to be a fascinating 2020 election cycle.

Accessible as an Overdrive ebook, hoopla ebook, and physical book.

Stolen Justice: The Struggle for African American Voting Rights by Lawrence Goldstone

Following the Civil War, the Reconstruction era raised a new question to those in power in the US: Should African-Americans, so many of them former slaves, be granted the right to vote?

In a bitter partisan fight over the legislature and Constitution, the answer eventually became yes, though only after two constitutional amendments, two Reconstruction Acts, two Civil Rights Acts, three Enforcement Acts, the impeachment of a president, and an army of occupation. Yet, even that was not enough to ensure that African-American voices would be heard, or their lives protected. White supremacists loudly and intentionally prevented black Americans from voting — and they were willing to kill to do so.

In this vivid portrait of the systematic suppression of the African-American vote for young adults, critically acclaimed author Lawrence Goldstone traces the injustices of the post-Reconstruction era through the eyes of incredible individuals, both heroic and barbaric, and examines the legal cases that made the Supreme Court a partner of white supremacists in the rise of Jim Crow. Though this is a story of America’s past, Goldstone brilliantly draws direct links to today’s creeping threats to suffrage in this important and, alas, timely book.
Accessible as an Overdrive ebook, hoopla audiobook, and physical book.

Roses and Radicals: The Epic Story of How American Women Won the Right to Voteby Susan Zimet and Todd Hasak-Lowy

The United States of America is almost 250 years old, but American women won the right to vote less than a hundred years ago.

And when the controversial nineteenth amendment to the U.S. Constitution-

the one granting suffrage to women-was finally ratified in 1920, it passed by a mere one-vote margin.

The amendment only succeeded because a courageous group of women had been relentlessly demanding the right to vote for more than seventy years. The leaders of the suffrage movement are heroes who were fearless in the face of ridicule, arrest, imprisonment, and even torture. Many of them devoted themselves to the cause knowing they wouldn’t live to cast a ballot.

The story of women’s suffrage is epic, frustrating, and as complex as the women who fought for it. Illustrated with portraits, period cartoons, and other images, Roses and Radicals celebrates this captivating yet overlooked piece of American history and the women who made it happen.

Accessible as an Overdrive ebook/audiobook and physical book.

Drawing the Vote: The Illustrated Guide to the Importance of Voting in Americaby Tommy Jenkins and illustrated by Kati Lacker

How the history of American voting rights has shaped the way we vote today.

Coinciding with the 2020 US presidential election, Drawing the Vote, an original graphic novel, looks at the history of voting rights in the United States and how it affects the way we vote today. Throughout the book, the author, Tommy Jenkins, identifies events and trends that led to the unprecedented results of the 2016 presidential election that left American political parties more estranged than ever. To balance these complex ideas and statistics, Kati Lacker’s original artistic style makes the book accessible for readers of all ages. At a time when many citizens are experiencing challenges and apathy about voting and skepticism concerning our bitterly divided government, Drawing the Vote seeks to offer some explanation for how we got here and how every American can take action to make their vote count.
Accessible as an Overdrive ebook, hoopla ebook, and physical book.

Yes, No, Maybe So by Becky Albertalli and Aisha Saeed

YES

Jamie Goldberg is cool with volunteering for his local state senate candidate—as long as he’s behind the scenes. When it comes to speaking to strangers (or, let’s face it, speaking at all to almost anyone) Jamie’s a choke artist. There’s no way he’d ever knock on doors to ask people for their votes…until he meets Maya.

NO

Maya Rehman’s having the worst Ramadan ever. Her best friend is too busy to hang out, her summer trip is canceled, and now her parents are separating. Why her mother thinks the solution to her problems is political canvassing—with some awkward dude she hardly knows—is beyond her.

MAYBE SO

Going door to door isn’t exactly glamorous, but maybe it’s not the worst thing in the world. After all, the polls are getting closer—and so are Maya and Jamie. Mastering local activism is one thing. Navigating the cross-cultural crush of the century is another thing entirely.

Accessible as an Overdrive ebook/audiobook, hoopla audiobook, and physical book.

A Few New Mysteries to Reserve for Curbside Pickup!

Here are a few new mysteries to reserve by three great authors! Reserve them for Curbside Pickup by following these instructions.

The Long Call and The Darkest Evening by Ann Cleeves

Ann Cleeves’ latest book, The Darkest Evening: A Vera Stanhope Novel, can be reserved now in the catalog. It is the #9 in the series and due out in September. 

The Long Call is out now and can be reserved in physical format for Curside Pickup, or you can check out ebook or audiobook format on Overdrive or through the Libby app. 

The first in the Two Rivers series, it is set on the coast of North Devon, England. Meet Detective Inspector Matthew Venn, who is investigating the death of a man found on the beach, as well as two kidnappings in which key suspects are discovered that are involved with the Woodyard Centre which is managed by Venn’s partner, Jonathan Church.

The Witch Elm by Tana French in print, ebook, or audiobook format

Toby, a publicist for an art gallery in Dublin, is savagely attacked in his apartment by robbers. He moves in with his Uncle Hugo to recover when a human skull is discovered in the hollow of a witch elm tree in the backyard.

Keep an eye out for The Searcher, French’s latest book, due out in October. She is also the author of the popular Dublin Murder Squad Series.

A Better Man and All The Devils Are Here by Louise Penny

A Better Man by Louise Penny is #15 in the Chief Inspector Gamache Mysteries. Gamache is now the head of homicide again, working with his son-in-law to solve what appears to be a murder of a pregnant woman by her husband. Unexpected events call for the investigation to be reexamined in this complex psychological mystery. Familiar characters appear in the setting of Three Pines, Canada.

Check it out in print , ebook, or audiobook format. 

All The Devils Are Here, #16 in the series, is due out in September.