NYPL Blogs: eReading Room

Workout for One: Digital Fitness Videos You Can Do at Home

Michelle Lee, Young Adult Librarian, Riverside Library — Fri, 10 Apr 2020 15:31:52 -0400

Frustrated that you're unable to go to the gym, dojo, dance school or yoga studio? No worries. Try streaming these fitness videos to learn a new skill or get a basic refresher course that will get your body active and moving.

Exercise at home, in the backyard (if you're lucky enough to have one), or in a park. Minimal sports equipment is required, aside from an internet connection and streaming device, towel and floor mat, and your library card. Just make sure to take it easy to avoid injuries and practice physical and social distancing from other people to stay safe.

All fitness instructional film descriptions are provided by the respective publishers. Some films are for all audiences while others are for people 14 years-old and older. Please be mindful and "return" your digital materials when you are done so that other patrons may use them as soon as possible, too.

African Healing Dance

In Africa, dance is much more than physical movement—it is a direct way to celebrate life and create healing. African Healing Dance is the first home video course for learning the expressive movements and healing traditions unique to Africa’s dance heritage. Viewers join Wyoma, the respected lead dancer and director of the Damballa dance troupe, as she teaches the African way of moving the entire body with passion and joy. Here’s an instructional program that brings a real high-energy African dance class into any home.

Rodney Yee's Complete Yoga For Beginners (five episodes)

Internationally acclaimed yoga instructor Rodney Yee guides you through four beginner yoga practices, each with a different benefits. Learn correct form, and move through a variety of simple poses and sequences that will help increase flexibility, energize the body and calm the mind.

Easy Yoga

This interactive video presents the ancient practice of Yoga as a modern way of thinking and living that brings order and balance to busy lives. Our trained yoga expert will take you through a series of positions that can build your body’s strength and flexibility, while bringing you toward inner peace and harmony. Just relax and follow along!

Shiva Rea's Mama and Baby Yoga (four episodes)

Presents three yoga routines designed for the new mother to regain her pre-pregnancy shape while bonding with her newborn baby.

Easy Tai Chi

Helps you relax, develop flexibility, and achieve harmony of mind and body. Follow along as an expert, skilled in teaching and competition, shows you the basics of Tai Chi, one of the world’s most ancient and popular martial arts. Tai Chi emphasizes harmony of mind and body—it can help you develop flexibility, ease away tensions, and enhance both relaxation and concentration. Find out why Tai Chi has been practiced for so long, with this easy-to-use interactive guide.

Easy Karate

Helps increase strength, develop flexibility, and improve mental and physical discipline! Learn the technique, history, and philosophy of the ancient art of Karate with Easy Karate, an introductory course packed with instructive video that lets you study at your own pace. Watch godan (5fth degree) martial artist Brad Jones demonstrate fundamental forms and precise techniques for the beginning student. Learn about stances, target areas, kata and basic sparring.

5 Days Fit Pilates (five episodes)

An effective selection of five Pilates workouts that will strengthen and lengthen every muscle of your body, accessible to all fitness levels & featuring top-notch Pilates talent.

5 Days Fit Abs (five episodes)

Five workouts that target core muscles.

Streaming Video with Overdrive: Leading Ladies Edition

Laura Stein, Adult Services Librarian, Grand Central Library — Tue, 18 Jul 2017 10:28:03 -0400

Did you know that you can stream feature films for free through Overdrive?

GIF via Giphy

You may have used Overdrive in the past for reading e-books or listening to e-audiobooks. Now you can stream over 600 feature films, documentaries, foreign films, and children's videos with only your library card! Find out how. In the meantime, check out some of these films with great leading ladies:

The English Teacher

Julianne Moore plays a high school teacher who runs into a former star student, played by Michael Angarano. The former student has not made it big in NYC like he wants, but she believes in him and loves his newest play. She convinces the theater teacher, played by Nathan Lane, to have the students put on the play much to the chagrin of the administration. Teacher and student get too close, emotions run too high, and what builds up must fall.

Pair with the novel Hummingbirds by Joshua Gaylord also on Overdrive.

Starlet

Dree Hemingway plays a smart, caring, young woman named Jane who intentionally places herself in an unlikely friendship with an elderly neighbor, Sadie. Besedka Johnson plays the nuanced widow who is apprehensive but lonely enough to accept this new friendship. Jane’s life as a porn actress plays in stark contrast to her trips with Sadie to her late husband’s grave. Starlet is the cute chihuahua that Jane takes everywhere. Stella Maeve is excellent as the roommate, a drug-abusing porn actress who keeps screwing up.

Pair with the novel All the Ugly and Wonderful Things by Bryn Greenwood also on Overdrive.

Welcome to Me

Kristen Wiig in a serious role...still funny. Wiig plays a woman with borderline personality disorder who miraculously wins the lottery, gets off her meds, and creates her own talk show a la Oprah. It has its comedic moments but it’s also a painful story of a woman whose BPD and narcissism hurts the loving people in her lives. These loving people include Wes Bentley, Tim Robbins, Linda Cardellini, Alan Tudyk, and Joan Cusack. James Marsden and Kulap Vilaysack have roles as well, though not in the inner circle.

Pair with the novel The Best Awful by Carrie Fisher.

Download Your Next Nonfiction Read

Alison N. Quammie, Senior Librarian, Stavros Niarchos Foundation Library (SNFL) — Thu, 02 Feb 2017 17:08:55 -0500

Chasing the Last Laugh: Mark Twain's Raucous and Redemptive Round-the-World by Richard Zacks

Are you looking for a good nonfiction read to download? Every month, Mid-Manhattan Library presents a series of Author @ the Library lectures featuring recent nonfiction books on a wide range of subjects, and many of these titles are available to borrow as e-books. Our regularly scheduled E-Book Help Hour: Get Started with E-Books is designed to help readers set up free Library e-book apps on their e-readers, tablets, phones and laptops. If you need a book recommendation, check out our list of e-titles from our 2016 author talks. See the complete lists of books discussed each month in 2016. Interested in a hands-on e-book tutorial? Stop by E-Book Central. You can also find online help on the E-Book Central page.

Whether you love books about New York City, past and present, engaging biographies and memoirs, U.S. and world history, books on politics, crime, economics, and society, photography, philosophy, or food, we hope you'll find something interesting on this list. All the titles were published in 2015-2016. Check out the monthly Author @The Library post written by our great team of librarians, or join us at our programs. Programs are free, and no registration is required. Happy reading!

BIOGRAPHY & MEMOIR

Bobby Kennedy: The Making of a Liberal Icon by Larry Tye
The Marquis: Lafayette Reconsidered by Laura Auricchio
Because of Eva: A Jewish Genealogical Journey by Susan J. Gordon
Swimming in the Sink: An Episode of the Heart by Lynne Cox
Wellth : How I Learned to Build a Life, Not a Resume by Jason Wachob
Woody: The Biography by David Evanier
Girl: My Childhood and the Second World War by Alona Frankel
The Santa Claus Man: The Rise and Fall of a Jazz Age Con Man and the Invention of Christmas in New York by Alex Palmer

NEW YORK

The Gilded Age in New York, 1870-1910 by Esther Crain
Footprints in New York: Tracing The Lives of Four Centuries of New Yorkers by James Nevius and Michelle Nevius
Hidden Waters of New York City: A History and Guide to 101 Forgotten Lakes, Ponds, Creeks, and Streams in the Five Boroughs by Sergey Kadinsky
Mannahatta: A Natural History of New York City by Eric W. Sanderson
Preserving South Street Seaport: The Dream and Reality of a New York Urban Renewal District by James M. Lindgren
Priced Out: Stuyvesant Town and the Loss of Middle-class Neighborhoods by Rachael A. Woldoff
City on a Grid: How New York Became New York by Gerard Koeppel
Building the Skyline: The Birth and Growth of Manhattan's Skyscrapers by Jason M. Barr

FOOD, HEALTH, NATURE, GARDENING

The Power Greens Cookbook: 140 Delicious Superfood Recipes by Dana Jacobi
Food Swap: Specialty Recipes for Bartering, Sharing & Giving by Emily Paster
Vitamania: Our Obsessive Quest for Nutritional Perfection by Catherine Price
The Gefilte Manifesto: New Recipes for Old World Jewish Foods by Jeffrey Yoskowitz & Liz Alpern
Falafel Nation: Cuisine and the Making of National Identity in Israel by Yael Raviv
Voracious: A Hungry Reader Cooks Her Way Through Great Books by Cara Nicoletti
The Rooftop Growing Guide: How to Transform Your Roof into a Vegetable Garden or Farm by Annie Novak
Birdwatching in New York City and on Long Island by Deborah Rivel and Kellye Rosenheim

CRIMINOLOGY, TERRORISM, TRUE CRIME

Convicting the Innocent: Death Row and America's Broken System of Justice by Stanley Cohen
Incarceration Nations: A Journey to Justice in Prisons Around the World by Baz Dreisinger
Defeating ISIS: Who They Are, How They Fight, What They Believe by Malcolm Nance
Bus on Jaffa Road: A Story of Middle East Terrorism and the Search for Justice by Mike Kelly
Playing Dead: A Journey Through the World of Death Fraud by Elizabeth Greenwood
Crooked Brooklyn: Taking Down Corrupt Judges, Dirty Politicians, Killers, and Body Snatchers by Michael Vecchione
Tong Wars: The Untold Story of Vice, Money, and Murder in New York's Chinatown by Scott D. Seligman
The Confidence Game: Why We Fall for It . . . Every Time by Maria Konnikova
The Con Men: Hustling in New York City by Terry Williams
Playing Against the House: The Dramatic World of an Undercover Union Organizer by James D. Walsh

LGBT, MARRIAGE EQUALITY, RELATIONSHIPS

Becoming Nicole: The Transformation of an American Family by Amy Ellis Nutt
After Marriage Equality: The Future of LGBT Rights edited by Carlos A. Ball
It's Not Over: Getting Beyond Tolerance, Defeating Homophobia, and Winning True Equality by Michelangelo Signorile
Stand by Me: The Forgotten History of Gay Liberation by James T. Downs
Spinster: Making a Life of One's Own by Kate Bolick

SCIENCE, & TECHNOLOGY, URBAN PLANNING

Rise of the Rocket Girls: The Women Who Propelled Us, from Missiles to the Moon to Mars by Nathalia Holt
I Contain Multitudes: The Microbes Within us and a Grander View of Life by Ed Yong
Street Smart: The Rise of Cities and the Fall of Cars by Samuel I. Schwartz, a.k.a. Gridlock Sam

POLITICS & GOVERNMENT

Republic of Spin: An Inside History of the American Presidency by David Greenberg
Supremely Partisan: How Raw Politics Tips the Scales in the United States Supreme Court by James D. Zirin
Why Presidents Fail and How They Can Succeed Again by Elaine C. Kamarck
Political Suicide by Michael Palmer

RELIGION, PHILOSOPHY & PSYCHOLOGY

Religious Freedom, Immigration, and Pluralism in Flushing, Queens by R. Scott Hanson
Strange Gods: A Secular History of Conversion by Susan Jacoby
Not So Different: Finding Human Nature in Animals by Nathan H. Lents
Pretentiousness: Why It Matters by Dan Fox
Andy Warhol Was a Hoarder: Inside the Minds of History’s Great Personalities by Claudia Kalb

E-Book Recommendations to Read in SimplyE

Lauren Lampasone, Senior Librarian, Stavros Niarchos Foundation Library (SNFL) — Thu, 21 Jul 2016 14:38:35 -0400

Now that SimplyE is here, if you have a smart phone there's no excuse not to be reading everywhere you go! If you're not sure what to pick from the 300,000 titles available, let our staff offer some suggestions.

Follow the links below to check out immediately or place holds in the catalog, but don't download until you are inside the app. Get the free app now from the App Store or Google Play; all you need is your NYPL library card and PIN.

It's summer, which means spending all your time outside. While you're there, take a few minutes to appreciate your surroundings and the plants and animals you share space with—because there are a lot of them, even in the middle of New York City. Let yourself be inspired by Unseen City: The Majesty of Pigeons, the Discreet Charm of Snails, & Other Wonders of the Urban Wilderness. —Kay Menick, Digital Curatorial Assistant

Emily Giffin is back with yet another summer hit. First Comes Love explores the difficult relationship between two sisters, who are very different. This is an engaging read, with relatable yet flawed characters that gives a detailed look into realistic family conflict and drama. —Morgan O'Reilly, Young Adult Librarian, Aguilar

I just finished reading The Girls by Emma Cline, released on June 14 of this year. It's inspired by the Charles Manson killings and focuses on a fourteen year-old girl who gets swept up in a Manson-esque group. Cline explores what it means to be a girl in our world and how the need to be loved, accepted, and seen can lead to terrible consequences. —Jessica Maldoff, Children's Librarian, 115th Street

I just finished The Gap of Time by Jeanette Winterson, her retelling of Shakespeare's The Winter's Tale (available to keep in SimplyE). Retold in a contemporary setting, the book has her signature lyricism and nuance, with a fair smattering of mystery and violence. —Jennifer Craft, Library Manager, Mulberry Street

Two thumbs way up for debut author Alwyn Hamilton's Rebel of the Sands. Amani is from back country, the only life she knows is gun slinging and the desert. Determined to break away, she disguises herself as a man participates in a marksman contest. Trapt between an unhappy future and escape, she takes a chance by escaping with a mysterious foreigner named Jin. The two embark on a caravan through the desert only to get caught up in the kingdom's rebellion. It might sound cheesy, but this is a real page turned. With fantastic mythology and great characters, you'll find yourself caught up waiting for "a new dawn, a new desert!" —Chantalle Uzan, Young Adult Librarian, Francis Martin

Beauty is a Wound is a lush book of extremes: equal parts satire and epic, it is at once marvelous and horrifying. Kurniawan's novel illustrates the history of Indonesia in the twentieth century through the eyes of Dewi Ayu, a beautiful, brilliant prostitute with a can-do attitude. If you're into ghosts, magical realism, folklore, and historical fiction, this book is a must-read. You probably have heard that 2016 is the 400th anniversary of Shakespeare's death, but did you know that this year also marks the 400th year since Shakespeare's contemporary and literary peer, Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra shuffled off this mortal coil? Cervantes' Don Quixote (some translations available to keep in SimplyE) is an endlessly entertaining novel that contains just as much wisdom, humor, tragedy, and insight as Shakespeare's collected plays. Read Edith Grossman's translation for the truest and most vibrant experience of this great work in English. —Nancy Aravecz, Adult Librarian Trainee, Jefferson Market

LaRose by Louise Erdrich is a multilayered story of grief, family and community. It has a rich sense of place and the female teenage friendships are refreshingly supportive while also feeling very real. The novel itself is quite optimistic despite being built around the accidental death of a child. It makes me want to read all of her back list immediately. —Alexis Walker, Senior Librarian, Epiphany

I'm using the New York Public Library SimplyE reader app and making my way through the detective novels of Peter Lovesey. Though I must say that I prefer a bound volume for reading at the beach or at night, the SimplyE reader is a great tool when you need instant gratification. I hope that we have enough e-copies of the novels once this post goes live—I wouldn't want to have to wait for my next installment of Superintendent Peter Diamond's adventures in Bath, England and environs with the Avon and Somerset Constabulary. Every time he discusses a case with his colleagues in the Manvers Street station canteen, or a pub, or tea shop I need to fix a snack. Diamond does enjoy his food. —Virginia L. Bartow, Senior Rare Book Cataloger and Special Formats Cataloging Instruction Coordinator, Special Formats Processing

In Camille Perri's The Assistants, what starts as a clerical error-cum-windfall quickly turns into a company-wide embezzlement scheme run by the assistants to the powerful directors of a media conglomerate. What the Nanny Saw by Fiona Neill is about a powerful British family's undoing during the mid-2000s financial crisis—like an accident, you can see the end coming and you can't look away. —Rebecca Dash Donsky, Manager, 67th Street

Two best friends are in a car accident during a student tour of Italy. The passenger, Simone, is dead and the driver, Jill, claims memory loss of the whole trip. According to social media and the press, it's murder and the Italian detectives certainly have their suspicions. However, Jill loved Simone like a sister and can't believe that she would ever harm her friend intentionally. So was it an accident or murder? Read With Malice and you decide. In Two Summers, Summer is just about to get on a plane to fly to Provence, France to visit her artist father, when she gets a phone call and that's when her life splits in two. In one summer, she doesn't answer the call and continues on to Provence where she meets a charming French boy and eats lots of chocolate croissants and in the other, she answers the phone, stays home, finally talks to her crush and discovers new sides to herself. Which one is her perfect one? —Anne Rouyer, Mulberry Street

Cao Xueqin's Story of the Stone, otherwise known as Dream of the Red Chamber, is one of the four great works of Chinese literature. The work itself is famous for casting a spell over its reader, rendering this fascinating piece impossible to put down. The romantic tale of the love between the eccentric Bao-yu and the moody Dai-yu, coupled with strange philosophical episodes involving a talking stone, is sure to appeal to a broad readership. —Andrew Fairweather, Library Information Assistant, Seward Park

The Atomic Weight of Love by Elizabeth J. Church is a good beach read. What happens when an aspiring ornithologist falls for an atomic scientist who is twenty years her senior? This novel is chockablock with bird facts and unseen forces of attraction. —Jenny Baum, Supervising Librarian, Jefferson Market

Barbara Kingsolver's The Lacuna is a poetically written, rich historical novel that I was looking forward to reading so much that I put it off for seven years! It was more than worth the wait. It follows a half-Mexican, half-American gay man from childhood to adulthood, as he finds himself involved with key political situations of the era. From the Depression to Leon Trotsky's exile in Mexico with Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera and back to the U.S. for WWII and the McCarthy era, this is a fabulous book that reminded me how beautiful a literary novel can be. —Suzanne Lipkin, Special Collections Reading Room, New York Public Library for the Performing Arts

I've been reading Blood, Bones, and Butter, a memoir written by the Chef/Owner of the East Village restaurant Prune. I generally give the side-eye to any memoir written by a person-du-jour (this was written at the height of Prune's, and therefore the author's, popularity), especially if that person is younger than 70, but this book reads like a really good novel—evocative prose, clear-eyed (sometimes painful) observations, and deep truths about the worlds in which this writer moves. I've started reading it more slowly as I get closer to the end, because I don't want it to end. —Melisa Tien, Library Technical Assistant III, Theatre on Film and Tape Archive, The New York Public Library for the Performing Arts

For whatever reason, all of my reading feels linked to Game of Thrones. I just read She-Wolves: the Women Who Ruled England Before Elizabeth by Helen Castor, for everyone rooting for the women taking charge at the end of the last season. —Judd Karlman

For fans of armchair travel, I am currently reading and recommend Mumbai New York Scranton: A Memoir by Tamara Shopsin. This is a breezy-turns-serious memoir and visual diary, written and illustrated by Tamara Shopsin (daughter of cheeky restaurateur Kenny Shopsin) with photographs by her husband Jason Fulford. Tamara narrates in a cheerful and quirky manner her trip to India with Jason, an unexpected illness, and the journey home. Shortly clipped sentences come loaded with gems of detail and emotional punch. —Sherri Machlin, Senior Librarian, Mulberry Street

I just finished reading Truthwitch by Susan Dennard. It was such a quick read and I loved it. It is about an epic friendship of Iseult and Safi. Safi is a truthwitch, which are very rare in the witchlands. She is also on the run from a Bloodwitch who is trying to capture her... —Lilian Calix, Library Information Assistant, Hamilton Grange

I just finished reading White Sands: Experiences from the Outside World by Geoff Dyer. It caught my eye since I took my own trip to White Sands National Monument earlier this year. The titular story is less about the place, more about the experience of picking up a hitchhiker nearby. Another essay in the book explores the psychic significance of land art—like The Lightning Field and Spiral Jetty—two places I have since added to my must-see list. The author recently appeared at Books at Noon and the NYPL Podcast. —Lauren Lampasone, Digital Experience

I'm reading The Other Wes Moore by Wes Moore. A gripping biography of two young men with many similarities, including having the same name and growing up fatherless and in close proximity of each other. One gets a life sentence for murder and the other becomes a Rhodes scholar and successful business leader although their paths could have easily been interchanged. —Nicola McDonald, Library Manager, Jerome Park

I've just begun Finding Fraser by KC Dyer, a funny tale about a young woman named Emma Sheridan (huge fan of Diana Gabaldon's Outlander series) who has just been fired from her Barista job, sold everything she owns, and booked a flight to Scotland with a brand new adventure blog to find her own Jamie Fraser. Along the way, she meets colorful characters, has some incredibly strange and comical experiences, and gains some valuable allies and supporters. It's great in that it is not obsessed with so much of the Outlander tale, but fans of Diana Gabaldon's work will enjoy the tidbits of reference to the novel. —Sherise Pagan, Senior Librarian, Grand Concourse

I'm reading an oldie but goodie, Tigana, by Guy Gavriel Kay. About an Italy-like fantasy country which two tyrants have split between them. It's about love, and honor, and memory, and freedom, and the concept of home. —Nicole Rosenbluth, Senior Librarian, Pelham Bay

If you enjoy dark humor with a healthy mix of fantasy, mythology, and folklore, you will LOVE the American Gods series by Neil Gaiman. I laughed throughout the whole first book and cannot wait for the TV series to come out in 2017. Next on my list is book number 2: Anansi Boys. —Rebecca Martinez, Library Information Assistant, Hudson Park

I just finished tearing through The Passenger by Lisa Lutz. The narrator (I would tell you her name, but I don't know which one is real anymore) changes identities like we change outfits, but she keeps it going for ten years. What a roller coaster! —Jessica DiVisconte, Executive Assistant, Office of the Chief Library Officer

I read The Glass Castle by Jeannette Walls in about 18 hours straight—couldn't put it down! A memoir about growing up the child of two very dysfunctionally unique parents. Each time people realized her father was a con man, the family would "skeddadle" to a new place to start afresh. They lived in the desert of California, Phoenix, West Virginia, New York... Her parents had her convinced that it was all part of a big adventure, and she loved it—until she didn't. —Erin Arlene Horanzy, Adult Librarian, Francis Martin

Every summer I tackle my #TBR (to be read) pile—right now I am reading The Jazz of Physics: The Secret Link Between Music And The Structure Of The Universe by Stephon Alexander (graduate of DeWitt High School X440 in NYC!). Beyond being a fascinating interdisciplinary read tackling physics and music, Alexander poetically shows "...how finding the right analogies can help us break new ground and traverse the hidden quantum world to the vast superstructure of our universe." Wow. —Amie Wright, Program Manager, MyLibraryNYC

Mary Roach has done it again with Grunt: The Curious Science of Humans at War. Boldly going where many civilians have not gone before, Roach infiltrated the military to ask the questions we didn't even know we had. Be like me and happily read aloud to everyone in ear shot about diarrhea, shark attacks, and stink bombs. —Kate Fais, Young Adult Librarian, Bloomingdale

Summer is often rereading time for me-currently rereading The Daughter of Time by Josephine Tey, an old favorite I haven't read in years. Clearing the name of Richard III! —Danita Nichols, Library Manager, Inwood

I'm currently (re)reading The Spiritwalker Trilogy by Kate Elliott on NYPL's SimplyE app. It's a diverse steampunk adventure, taking place in an alternate Victorian era, featuring a strong female protagonist. I just started the second book, Cold Fire. —Nanyamkah M. Mars, Young Adult Library Trainee, Westchester Square

LA Woman by Eve Babitz clocks in at just 160 pages, there’s no good reason not to read this fictional memoir at the beach this summer. Don’t let the novel’s slim size fool you; Eve Babitz’s raw, funny prose cuts deep as she describes the heady days of growing up, getting wasted, and dating artists and rockers in bohemian Los Angeles during the 1960s. —Mina Hong, Senior Young Adult Librarian, Epiphany

Lions by Bonnie Nadzam is recommended for fans of writing where the place itself is as much of a character as any of the protagonists. This one is set in a dying small town in rural Colorado, where people are leaving for all of the expected reasons, and also for reasons that seem to touch on something deeper and eerier. Summer heat and stillness, and restlessness, and a current of something else infuse the town of Lions. As in her earlier novel Lamb, Nadzam is a master of making her reader feel slightly uneasy and conflicted, and it's not always easy to pinpoint why, but that's part of the joy and nuance of it. —Emily Pullen, Library Shop

I must mention the book I'm currently reading: Tolstoy, Rasputin, Others, and Me by Teffi, a pseudonym for Russian writer Nadezhda Lokhvitskaya. It is hilarious. One of my favorite couple of sentences appears on the first page, "And then what wakes me an hour or two later is Paris itself—dear, elegant, beautiful Paris. Far better than being woken by some bewhiskered old crone of a concierge, with the eyes of a cockroach." —Alexis Walker, Senior Librarian, Epiphany

I'm reading two books: The Mysteries of Udolpho by Ann Radcliffe and Quiet Power: The Secret Strengths of Introverts by Susan Cain. Although this version is for teens, I can totally relate to this version. It is definitely a must read for all introverts, like myself! All the time that I'm reading it I'm thinking "How come there wasn't a book like this for me when I was a teenager?" —Tabrizia Jones, Young Adult Senior Librarian, Sedgwick

I'm reading A Little Life by Hanya Yanagihara using the SimplyE app. Now I don't have to lug around the heavy book!
The lives of four college friends are beautifully chronicled over the course of thirty years of good and terrible times. The solace of friendship, the connecting thread. —Maura Muller, Volunteer Manager

I recently found two books on SimplyE that were popular a while back and I never go to read them so I clicked on GET and READ and enjoyed The Nightingale by Kristin Hannah and The War That Saved My Life by Kimberly Brubaker Bradley. Still deciding what to read on vacation at the end of July but August will be taken up with my Book Group's choice for September; 11/22/63 by Stephen King. —Peggy Salwen, Senior Children's Librarian, St. Agnes

Inspired by the "New Nordic Noir" film series that recently screened at the IFC Center, I've started Jussi Adler-Olsen's Department Q series about a dogged Danish cop exiled to a solitary basement office to work cold cases when higher-ups want him out of the way. Currently, I'm reading Fasandræberne (The Absent One), the second in the series. Detective Møerck and his Arab sidekick Assad must prove that a gang of former prep school bullies, now rich and powerful, are guilty of the gruesome murder of two teenagers twenty years previously—although another man has confessed and is serving time for the crime. —Kathie Coblentz, Special Collections/Special Formats Processing

Want more e-book recommendations?

Introducing SimplyE: 300,000 E-Books to Browse, Borrow, and Read

Johannes Neuer, Director of Customer Experience — Thu, 21 Jul 2016 10:32:38 -0400

The New York Public Library just released SimplyE, a new app that gives NYPL cardholders the ability to browse, borrow, and read more than 300,000 e-books from the Library’s collections in just a few easy steps.

It is now easier than ever to take the Library with you, whether you're at home, on your commute, or enjoying the summer at the beach. You can download the initial release of SimplyE for iPhone/iPad or Android, log in with your NYPL card barcode and PIN, and start reading.

If you're not sure what to read next, SimplyE features recommendations curated by librarians, making it easy to find books that you can access immediately. We're working to add additional features for the app in the near future, including a Kindle Fire version, a desktop reader, an mp3 audiobook format, as well as page bookmarking and text annotations.

You'll need a New York Public Library card to use SimplyE. Residents of New York City can apply in person for a New York Public Library card or renew at an NYPL location near you, and residents of New York State who live outside New York City can apply by mail. Learn more about applying for a card.

If you need help using the app, go to More / Help in the app or visit gethelp.nypl.org to get help from our staff or find answers to your questions, such as resetting your PIN. We also invite you to provide feedback via the app under More / Help / Report an Issue in the app, which sends a message to Library staff for follow-up.

Learn more at our resource page about e-books.

SimplyE has been made possible in part by the Institute of Museum and Library Services (Award Numbers LG-05-13-0356-13 and LG-00-15-0263-15).

Recommended at Open Book Night: Patron Picks in "E"

Elizabeth Waters, AskNYPL — Thu, 07 Jan 2016 16:52:32 -0500

Not sure what to read next? Check out these book recommendations from fellow book lovers! The second Friday of the month is Open Book Night at the Mid-Manhattan Library, when we meet to talk about books we love. Readers share a wide variety of fiction and nonfiction titles that they’ve enjoyed, so we hope you’ll find something you’ll love to read in this selection of books recommended in 2015. All the tiles are available from the Library as e-books, as well as in print. Please come and share some of your book recommendations at our monthly gatherings. Our theme for Friday, January 8 is "In with the New!" We'd love to hear about your favorite new reads from 6-7 PM.

Never borrowed an e-book from the Library? No worries! We're also in the middle of our 5th annual eBook Central this month (January 4 - January 16), helping readers set up free Library e-book apps on their e-readers, tablets, phones, and laptops. If you're interested in a hands-on e-book tutorial, please stop by eBook Central during the hours listed. You can also find online help on the eBook Central page.

You can find the complete annotated reading lists from our 2015 Open Book Nights here. We wish you lots of great reading in 2016!

Old Favorites

The Three Kingdoms by Luo Guanzhong. Renowned 13th-century Chinese epic.

The Aeneid by Virgil. Epic Latin poem published in the 1st century AD.

Breakfast at Tiffany’s by Truman Capote. Classic New York novella.

Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe. Seminal post-colonial African novel, published in 1958.

Invisible Cities by Italo Calvino. Timeless meditation on how we live, published in 1972.

The Exorcist by William Peter Blatty. Beselling horror classic published in 1971.

Time and Again by Jack Finney. Classic time travel novel of New York, published in 1970.

Night Flight by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry. A gripping aviation tale, published in 1931.

Idiots First by Bernard Malamud. Short stories from a great mid-20th century New York writer.

Martin Dressler: The Tale of an American Dreamer by Steven Millhauser. Pulitzer Prize-winning 1996 novel of 19th century New York.

Recent Fiction

The Ghost Bride by Yangsze Choo

The House Girl by Tara Conklin

The 19th Wife by David Ebershoff

The Ocean at the End of the Lane by Neil Gaiman

Recipe for a Happy Life by Brenda Janowitz

I Am Having So Much Fun Here WIthout You by Courtney Maum

Satin Island by Tom McCarthy

The Swing Voter of Staten Island by Arthur Nersesian

Netherland by Joseph O’Neill

Lila by Marilynne Robinson

The Wise Man’s Fear by Patrick Rothfuss

Kitchens of the Great Midwest by Ryan J. Stradal

Nora Webster by Colm Toibin

Memoirs, Travel, and Exploring

The Odd Woman and the City by Vivian Gornick (2015).

A Walker in the City by Alfred Kazin (1951).

Unorthodox: The Scandalous Rejection of my Hasidic Roots by Deborah Feldman (2012)

Into the Wild by Jon Krakauer (1996)

Wild: From Lost to Found on the Pacific Coast Trail by Cheryl Strayed (2012)

The Good Girl’s Guide to Getting Lost: A Memoir of Three Continents, Two Friends, and One Unexpected Adventure by Rachel Friedman (2011).

1,000 Places to See Before You Die by Patricia Schultz (2011).

The Oregon Trail: An American Journey by Rinker Buck (2015).

A Walk in the Woods by Bill Bryson (1998).

The Innocents Abroad by Mark Twain (1875)

History

Lies My Teacher Told Me: Everything Your American History Textbook Got Wrong by James W. Loewen (2007).

J ust Kids from the Bronx: Telling It the Way It Was: An Oral History by Arlene Alda (2015).

Atlantic: Great Sea Battles, Heroic Discoveries, Titanic Storms, and a Vast Ocean of a Million Stories by Simon Winchester (2010).

In the Kingdom of Ice: The Grand and Terrible Polar Voyage of the USS Jeannette by Hampton Sides (2014).

The Ugly Renaissance: Sex, Greed, Violence and Depravity in an Age of Beauty by Alexander Lee (2013.)

Finance and Food

Rich Dad, Poor Dad: What the Rich Teach Their Kids About Money-- That the Poor and Middle Class Do Not by Robert T. Kiyosaki with Sharon L. Lechter (1997).

The Big Short: Inside the Doomsday Machine by Michael Lewis (2010)

Ani’s Raw Food Kitchen by Ani Phyo (2007).

Eating Animals by Jonathan Safran Foer (2009).

What e-books would you recommend to our reading community? Come to an Open Book Night and tell us, or let us know in the comments section below.

Download Your Next Nonfiction Read: Author @ the Library in "E"

Elizabeth Waters, AskNYPL — Wed, 06 Jan 2016 12:14:19 -0500

Are you looking for a good nonfiction read to download? Every month the Mid-Manhattan Library presents a series of Author @ the Library lectures featuring recent nonfiction books on a wide range of subjects, and many of these titles are available to borrow as e-books. Since we're doing our 5th annual eBook Central this month, helping readers set up free Library e-book apps on their e-readers, tablets, phones and laptops, we thought it could be handy to have a list of some e-titles from our 2015 author talks, as well as a few from upcoming programs. If you'd like, you can see the complete lists of books discussed each month in 2015. If you're interested in a hands-on e-book tutorial, please stop by eBook Central during the hours listed. You can also find online help on the eBook Central page.

Whether you love books about New York City, past and present, engaging biographies and memoirs, U.S. and world history, books on politics, economics, and society, music, theater, and dance, or food, we hope you'll find something interesting on this list. All the titles were published in 2014-2015. And please remember that you're always invited to our Author @ the Library programs, which take place most Monday-Thursday evenings at 6:30. Programs are free, and no registration is required. Happy reading!

New York City

Rebel Souls: Walt Whitman and America’s First Bohemians! by Justin Martin
St. Marks is Dead; The Many Lives of America’s Hippest Street by Ada Calhoun
New York in a Dozen Dishes by Robert Sietsema
Lockdown on Rikers: Shocking Stories of Abuse and Injustice at New York's Notorious Jail by Mary E. Buser
City on a Grid: How New York Became New York by Gerard Koeppel
Gangland New York: The Places and Faces of Mob History by Anthony M. DeStefano
Walking Manhattan; 30 Strolls Exploring Cultural Treasures, Entertainment Centers, and Historical Sites in the Heart of New York City by Ellen Levitt
A Coney Island Reader: Through Dizzy Gates of Illusion, edited by Louis J. Parascandola and John Parascandola

Biographies and Memoirs

The Phantom of Fifth Avenue: The Mysterious Life and Scandalous Death of Heiress Huguette Clark by Meryl Gordon
Mademoiselle: Coco Chanel and the Pulse of History by Rhonda K. Garelick
Russian Tattoo: A Memoir by Elena Gorokhova
All Who Go Do Not Return: A Memoir by Shulem Deen
The Remarkable Rise of Eliza Jumel: A Story of Marriage and Money in the Early Republic by Margaret A. Oppenheimer
Woody: The Biography by David Evanie

History

The Nazis Next Door: How America Became a Safe Haven for Hitler's Men by Eric Lichtblau
The Great Fire: One American's Mission to Rescue Victims of the 20th Century's First Genocide by Lou Ureneck
Our Man in Charleston: Britain's Secret Agent in the Civil War South by Christopher Dickey
1932: The Rise of Hitler and FDR —Two Tales of Politics, Betrayal, and UnlikelyDestiny by David Pietrusza
When Books Went to War: The Stories that Helped Us Win World War IIby Molly Guptill Manning
The Cost of Courage by Charles Kaiser

Economics, Politics, Sociology

The Liar's Ball: The Extraordinary Saga of How One Building Broke the World's Toughest Tycoons by Vicky Ward
The Edge Becomes the Center: An Oral History of Gentrification in the Twenty-first Century by DW Gibson
Gay Berlin: Birthplace of a Modern Identity by Robert Beachy
Terms of Service: Social Media and the Price of Constant Connection by Jacob Silverman
The Influence Machine: The U.S. Chamber of Commerce and the Corporate Capture of American Life by Alyssa Katz
From the Other Side of the World: Extraordinary Entrepreneurs, Unlikely Places by Elmira Bayrasli
Fracture: Barack Obama, the Clintons, and the Racial Divide by Joy-Ann Reid

Psychology, Parapsychology, and Self-Help

Unrequited: Women and Romantic Obsession by Lisa A. Phillips
Do the KIND Thing: Think Boundlessly, Work Purposefully, Live Passionately by Daniel Lubetzky
The Narcissist You Know: Defending Yourself Against Extreme Narcissists in an All-About-Me Age by Joseph Burgo, PhD.
The Witch of Lime Street: Séance, Seduction, and Houdini in the Spirit World by David Jaher

Performing Arts

In the Company of Legends by Joan Kramer and David Heeley
THE B-SIDE: The Death of Tin Pan Alley and the Rebirth of the Great American Song by Ben Yagoda
What the Eye Hears: A History of Tap Dancing by Brian Seibert

Food, Home, Fun

Tasty: The Art and Science of What We Eat by John McQuaid
Pastrami on Rye: An Overstuffed History of the Jewish Deli by Ted Merwin
The Kitchen Ecosystem: Integrating Recipes to Create Delicious Meals by Eugenia Bone
Voracious: A Hungry Reader Cooks Her Way Through Great Books by Cara Nicoletti
The Monopolists: Obsession, Fury, and the Scandal Behind America’s Favorite Board Game by Mary Pilon
The Indestructible Houseplant: 200 Beautiful, Easy-Care Plants that Everyone Can Grow by Tovah Martin

Essential Longform: The Best Harper Lee Reads

Tracy O'Neill — Tue, 28 Apr 2015 10:56:06 -0400

To Kill a Mockingbird, at this point, seems almost to be the essence of literary life for American schoolchildren. It's a perennial favorite in the English classroom that, unlike many other examples of required reading, wins the lifelong affection of many readers. At the same time, its author, Harper Lee, is one of the most mysterious figures in American letters. This year, on April 28, Lee will turn 89. She will publish her second novel, Go Set a Watchman in July. As we await this much-anticipated encore, we're looking at the beloved author who told us that real courage was “when you know you're licked before you begin, but you begin anyway and see it through no matter what.”

To access articles held in our subscription databases, first authenticate with your library card number through the NYPL website, then click on the permalink in the article title.

“Love—In Other Words” by Harper Lee
Vogue April 15, 1961 (via The Vogue Archive)
No one can quite capture Harper Lee as can the author herself, and this essay is quintessentially Lee as she drops little pearls on love, unapologetically declaring to us that “Without love, life is pointless and dangerous.”

“Harper Lee's Novel Achievement” by Charles Leerhsen
Smithsonian Magazine June 2010 (via Academic Search Premier)
Journalist Charles Leerhsen visited Lee's hometown, Monroeville, Alabama on the eve of To Kill a Mockingbird's fiftieth anniversary. His bemused critique of the town's grab for touristic commercialization suggests something like an explanation for Lee's media-reticence.

“Mocking Bird Call”
Newsweek January 9, 1961
In 1961, Newsweek published a profile of Lee that shows the author at an angle unfamiliar to us now: the new author. Lee reveals, with some amusement, one of her favorite reader letters.

“To Steal a Mockingbird?” by Mark Seal
Vanity Fair July 2013 (via Proquest Research Library)
In 2013, Seal covered Lee's lawsuit and with it a brief history of literary scandals, including that surrounding the execution of John Steinbeck’s estate. The portrait that emerges is messy and fascinating.

“The Courthouse Ring” by Malcolm Gladwell
New Yorker August 10, 2009 (via Proquest Research Library)
To Kill a Mockingbird has been much praised for its treatment of issues of race. Gladwell posits that, in fact, Atticus Finch represents the limits of southern liberalism in the mid-century Southern landscape.

“Why ‘To Kill a Mockingbird’ Won't Die” by Sam Tanenhaus
Bloomberg View February 15, 2015
In this interrofation of the enduring appeal of To Kill a Mockingbird, Sam Tanenhaus offers one explanation: the novel is not only one centered around issues of social justice but also the goodness of reading. How could the bookish of heart resist?

“To Shill a Mockingbird” by Neely Tucker
Washington Post February 16, 2015
When it was announced that Lee's second novel Go Set a Watchman would be published, many speculated that an elderly Lee was taken advantage of by profit-driven vultures. Tucker investigates the claim with wit and nuance.

Essential Longform: The Best Nirvana Reads

Tracy O'Neill — Mon, 30 Mar 2015 11:50:13 -0400

Nirvana pioneered grunge rock, but they're also one of those bands for which the cult of personality is equally as strong a pull as the music. When you ask most Nirvana fans about the band, they'll tell you they loved Kurt Cobain, and they don't just mean the heartrending wails and throaty near-whispers. They mean that they loved Cobain the living figure and Cobain the cultural symbol. As we await the documentary Montage of Heck, we're looking back at some of the best journalism written about the men who made us cry, "Hello, hello, hello, how low?"

To access articles held in our subscription databases, first authenticate with your library card number through the NYPL website, then click on the permalink in the article title.

“The Downward Spiral” by Neil Strauss
Rolling Stone June 2, 1994 (via Academic Search Premier)
Following Kurt Cobain's tragic death at the age of twenty-seven, it seemed that a whole generation of young people were left asking, why? In this work of investigative journalism, Neil Strauss looks at the Nirvana frontman's painful final days.

“Everman's War” by Clay Tarver
New York Times Magazine July 7, 2013 (via ProQuest Research Library)
You may not have heard of Jason Everman, but he played bass in both Nirvana and Soundgarden. He was also kicked out of both bands. So what do you do when you're a veteran of the early nineties rock scene? Everman joined the military.

“Nirvana for Two-Year-Olds” by Thomas Beller
New Yorker Culture Desk January 2014
Nothing against Raffi, but just because you have a kid doesn't mean you want to listen to kids' music all the time. Here's what happens when you listen to Nirvana with a two-year-old.

“Mr. Grohl’s Cabinet of Wonder” by Chris Martins
Spin February 20, 2013
In 2013, Dave Grohl (yes, that Dave Grohl) made his directorial debut with the documentary Sound City. Martins unfolds the way that Grohl gathered Stevie Nicks, Rick Springfield, and Corey Taylor to tell their stories about the legendary California sound studio.

“Geek Love at 25: How a Freak Family Inspired Your Pop Culture Heroes” by Caitlin Roper
Wired March 7, 2014
Of course we're always interested when literature informs music, so it's no surprise that we were fascinated to learn that Kurt Cobain was a fan of fellow west coaster Katherine Dunne's Geek Love.

“Why The World Needs Celine Dion Fans” by Krist Novoselic
TIME March 25, 2014 (via Academic Search Premier)
This idea may not have occurred to you before: the world needs Celine Dion fans. In Krist Novoselic's essay, the Nirvana bassist takes cues from Carl Wilson's music writing nouveau classic Let's Talk About Love, using Dion as an entry point to talk about the cultures that gather around particular artists.

Want some even longer reads? Check our catalog for e-books about Nirvana available now for your tablet or e-reader.

11 Ways to Find Romance

Jaqueline Woolcott, AskNYPL — Wed, 11 Feb 2015 13:41:43 -0500

Image ID: 1600898

Roses are Red
Violets are Blue
We've got 11 Romances for you.
Why eleven?
One plus one equals two!

For Valentines Day, The New York Public Library's Romance Book Club gives you our favorites from the genre. Here's our top 11 picks, in no particular order. Unlike the horrendous poem above, these titles you'll enjoy!

Romance Book Club's Favorite Books:

A Week to Be Wicked by Tessa Dare
What do you get when you combine a down-on-his-luck rake, an argumentative bluestocking spinster, a trip to Scotland and a fossil named Francine? A story that is a fun ride for both new and veteran romance readers. (Clarice)

The Duchess War by Courtney Milan
Who doesn’t love the quiet wallflower and dangerous duke trope? Minerva can see quite clearly through her spectacles that the Duke of Clermont is up to no good.
While, this is the first title in the ‘Brothers Sinister’ series, Romance Book Club recommends all of them.

Sea Swept by Nora Roberts
When discussing our favorites, Romance Book Club proclaimed Nora Roberts ‘The Queen of Romance' so don't miss out!
In Sea Swept Roberts introduces the irresistible Quinn brothers and you can get to know them a bit better by reading all four installments of the Chesapeake Bay Saga.

Welcome to Temptation by Jennifer Crusie
A great example of Crusie’s patented mix of heart and humor.
When Sophie and her sister show up in a little town called Temptation to film a movie, she thinks she’s made a bad decision. When she meets the town’s young, rich, and way too attractive mayor, she knows she has. (Kate and Alyssa)

The Madness of Lord Ian Mackenzie by Jennifer Ashley
Ian McKenzie is peculiar and, more than that, he’s dangerous. But Beth is long widowed and newly wealthy, and an affair with the sexy Scottish Lord might be madness---or it might be love. (Alyssa)

Destiny's Embrace by Beverly Jenkins
Jenkins California-set Western historical featuring Logan, an obstinate rancher, and his mail-order maid Mariah has been described as a "buffet of romance tropes." Despite its feast for the romantic at heart, this book leaves the reader wanting to read more. Lucky for us that there are two more books in the series! (Alyssa)

A Rogue by Any Other Name by Sarah MacLean
A gem in the long line of Historical Romance options.
Can a proper lady plagued with disappointing courtships and a desire to break the rules of society win the heart of a disgraced Marquess running London’s underworld? Can this scoundrel keep her away from the depravity of his gaming hell and convince her to rescue his reputation? (Jaqueline)

The Unsung Hero by Suzanne Brockmann
The Unsung Hero is the first of Brockmann’s Troubleshooters books, about a company of Navy SEALs (some of whom later form Troubleshooters, Inc., a private security firm). The whole series is fantastic and should be read in order, as there are several overlapping multi-book arcs. Fans of the series will tell you the series takes off when Sam Starrett and Jules Cassidy arrive on the scene in Book 3 or so, though they don’t get their romances until later—Sam with Jules’s partner Alyssa after much drama, and later Jules with actor Robin. The whole series is amazing, especially if you’re a romantic suspense fan, but definitely start here. (Kate)

Just One of the Guys by Kristan Higgins
Higgins has a great sense of humor and her novels rarely follow the traditional romance trajectory (in a good way!).
A Yankees fan and a Tolkien nerd has moved back to her hometown with the hopes of finding Mr. Right and settling down. Of course, nothing is that easy, especially not with her childhood best guy friend being all handsome and perfect. (Kate)

Slave to Sensation by Nalini Singh
Looking for something a little paranormal romance? Book Club has you covered.
In a world ruled by the emotionless Psy, Sascha Duncan struggles to contain the flaw of feelings within her. Then she meets the tempting Changeling, Lucas Hunter, who is searching for a murderer that he suspects she can help him find. Can she resist the desire she has for him? Does she want to? (Clarice)

Dark Lover by J.R. Ward
You don't have to go far, find love with vengeful alpha vampires here in NYC! This is the first in the Black Dagger Brotherhood series (and the entire series is recommended), but the third ‘Lover Awakened’ is especially wonderful.

Click here for all our favorites in a catalog list.

About Romance Book Club

Romance Book Club meets the last Monday of each month at the Jefferson Market Library in the Mae West room on the 3rd floor. Join us February 23 as we discuss What a Woman Wants by Judi Fennell and Demon Hunting in a Dive Bar by Lexi George.

Alexis Daria: @alexisdaria
Alyssa Cole: @AlyssaColeLit
Kate McMurray: @katemcmwriter
Clarice Meadows: @embereye
Stacey Agdern: @nystacey
Jaqueline Woolcott: @jaqzilla
Jefferson Market Library: @jmarketlibrary

When the Print Book Would Take Up Your Whole Bag... Try an eBook

Lynn Lobash, Manager of Reader Services — Fri, 03 Oct 2014 10:46:29 -0400

You can't even fit a pack of gum in your bag if you're trying to carry Shōgun around with you... so skip the print copy and download an ebook instead! These long reads are a perfect excuse to check out a digital copy.

Cryptonomicon by Neal Stephenson
A story that leaps back and forth between keeping Nazi intelligence unaware that the Allies have cracked their code and protecting a modern day "data haven." [1168 pages]

The Pillars of the Earth by Ken Follett
An epic set in twelfth-century England, the book tells the story of the lives entwined in the building of the greatest Gothic cathedral. [1008 pages]

A Song of Ice and Fire by George R.R. Martin
Hardcover versions of the first four books in Martin's epic fantasy series weigh more than 11 pounds... seriously, you can't bring that on the train. [a kabillion pages]

Lonesome Dove by Larry McMurtry
A frontier story set in Lonesome Dove Texas tells the story of the outlawas, Indians and settlers that live there. [843 pages]

His Dark Materials by Philip Pullman
A suspenseful fantasy series for teens, this trilogy includes Pullman's fantastical classics: The Golden Compass, The Subtle Knife, and The Amber Spyglass. [946 pages]

A Little Life by Hanya Yanigahara
This critically acclaimed coming-of-age story traces the lives of four college friends who move to New York City. [720 pages]

I Know This Much Is True by Wally Lamb
"On the afternoon of October 12, 1990, my twin brother, Thomas, entered the Three Rivers, Connecticut, public library, retreated to one of the rear study carrels, and prayed to God the sacrifice he was about to commit would be deemed acceptable..." [912 pages]

The Naked and the Dead by Norman Mailer
The reportage style story is based on Mailer's experiences with the 112th Cavalry Regiment during the Philippines Campaign in World War II. [736 pages]

Time Enough for Love by Robert A. Heinlein
Told in a series of retrospective narratives—the book tells the story of highlights in the life of Lazarus Long, the oldest living human, now more than two thousand years old. [608 pages]

Foucault's Pendulum by Umberto Eco
After reading too many manuscripts about occult conspiracy theories, three editors invent their own conspiracy for fun. [640 pages]

Perdido Street Station by China Miéville
In an interview, Miéville described this book as "basically a secondary world fantasy with Victorian era technology. So rather than being a feudal world, it's an early industrial capitalist world of a fairly grubby, police statey kind!" [640 pages]

Shōgun by James Clavell
Feudal Japan in 1600. The rise of a warlord as seen through the eyes of an English adventurer. [1152 pages]

The Stand by Stephen King
When a plague wipes out 99 percent of the world’s population, the remaining 1% gets a post-apocalyptic glimpse of their future. [1472 pages]

---

Have trouble reading standard print? Many of these titles are available in formats for patrons with print disabilities.

Staff picks are chosen by NYPL staff members and are not intended to be comprehensive lists. We'd love to hear your ideas too, so leave a comment and tell us what you’d recommend. And check out our Staff Picks browse tool for more recommendations!

How to Clean Things

Lauren Lampasone, Senior Librarian, Stavros Niarchos Foundation Library (SNFL) — Fri, 18 Jul 2014 15:38:48 -0400

How to Clean... in NYPL Digital Collections

How did you learn how to clean? I guess my parents taught me, and after a few years of chores it just became second nature. Don't mix ammonia and bleach. Sort laundry into light and dark colors. Sweep first before mopping. Make the bed!

At some point in your life it might be worth going back for a refresher course. Or just get some hot tips to strengthen those scrubbing muscles. There might be something new to learn that would save us all precious time and energy in the neverending struggle to maintain basic levels of cleanliness. I picked up My Boyfriend Barfed in My Handbag... And Other Things You Can't Ask Martha by Jolie Kerr from the library, in part because I always laugh out loud at her column "Ask A Clean Person" on the Hairpin, and in part because I always need some cleaning motivation! She makes cleaning sound almost fun; she encourages you to turn on the music first, to never panic, and to get serious about that disgusting dirt sweater on the top of your fridge.

When an errant liquid suddenly becomes a stain, you might not have time to walk down to the library to pick up a cleaning manual. But we do offer several e-books about cleaning that you can check out from home. You might be surprised how many books we have on this topic, not to mention all sorts of clutter-buster motivational tomes.

The Life-changing Magic of Tidying up: The Japanese Art of Decluttering and Organizing by Marie Kondo. Book - 2014
The National Trust Manual of Housekeeping: The Care of Collections in Historic Houses Open to the Public. Book - 2006
My Boyfriend Barfed in My Handbag ... and Other Things You Can't Ask Martha by Jolie Kerr. eBook - 2014
Good Housekeeping Stain Rescue! The A-Z Guide to Removing Smudges, Spots & Other Spills by Anne Marie Soto. Book - 2007
2,001 Amazing Cleaning Secrets by Jeff Bredenberg. Book - 2004
Cleaning and Stain Removal for Dummies by Gill Chilton. eBook - 2004
The Complete Idiot's Guide to Cleaning by Mary Findley. Book - 2005
The Ultimate Accidental Housewife: Your Guide to A Clean-enough House by Julie Edelman. Book - 2008
Mrs. Meyer's Clean Home: No-nonsense Advice That Will Inspire You to Clean Like the Dickens by Mrs. Thelma A. Meyer. Book - 2009
Home Comforts: The Art and Science of Keeping House by Cheryl Mendelson. Book - 1999
Cleaning: Plain & Simple by Donna Smallin. Book - 2006
How the Queen Cleans Everything: Handy Advice for A Clean House, Cleaner Laundry, and A Year of Timely Tips by Linda Cobb. Book - 2002
Dirt: The Quirks, Habits, and Passions of Keeping House. Book - 2009
The Dirt on Clean: An Unsanitized History by Katherine Ashenburg. Book - 2007

You might also be interested in the many public domain reading materials on the art of home economics available through HathiTrust.

The Housekeeper's Handbook of Cleaning, by Sarah Josephine MacLeod
Housekeeping Handbook: How to Do It, by Lydia Ray Balderston
Rules for Cleaning by Mary Urie Watson
Housecleaning Made Easier by Sarah J. MacLeod

Now that you know how to clean things, no excuses! Take care of that mess!

20 of the Most Important Books for Economics before 1940

John Balow — Wed, 18 Jun 2014 23:03:45 -0400

...and where you can read (most of) them without leaving your computer screen.

Carl Schleicher, Der Bücherwurm

Lists of 'the best' or 'the most important' are meant to be controversial. This list has the added feature that there is some dispute about whether one can even talk about 'economics' much before Adam Smith. But I get to flout that discussion in the hope of starting another. Let the arguments begin:

1. Aristotle, Politics (250 BCE?)

Among many possibilities try this 1853 collection: Politics and Economcs of Aristotle (start at pg. 2)

2. Corpus Juris Canonici (354 - 1505)

Successive prohibitions on usury, not always strictly biblical, challenged economic thought for a millennium.

3. Luca Pacioli, Summa de arithmetica, geometria, proportioni & proportionalita ... (1494)

Includes what is regarded as the foundation of double-entry bookkeeping, at Section IX, Treatise XI apparently. Try this 1588 English translation onsite, thanks to our subscription to Early English Books Online. Or also onsite, see this later reproduction and translation.

4. Thomas Mun, England's Treasure by Forraign Trade (1664)

Onsite read the first edition in Early English Books Online, or at home read our 1755 edition thanks to our partner the Hathi Trust.

5. William Petty, Verbum Sapienti (1691)

At home use this 1899 collection from HathiTrust, starting at pg. 99 of vol. I.

6.Bernard Mandeville, The Fable of the Bees, or, private vices publick benefits (1714).

Onsite you can read the first edition via Eighteenth Century Collections Online (ECCO). Or you can read at home our copy of a 1795 edition from HathiTrust.

7. David Hume, Political Discourses (1752)

Often vol. II of the Essays. You can read this second edition onsite due to our subscription to ECCO, or you can read our own copy of the 1753-56 edition of the Essays, starting at Vol. 2.

8. Adam Smith, An inquiry into the nature and causes of the wealth of nations (1776)

You can read the first edition onsite with our subscription to ECCO. You can read this second edition from our collection at home via the Hathi Trust.

9. Thomas Malthus, An Essay on the Principle of Population (2nd ed. 1803)

Greatly expanded from the first edition, responding to critics. You can read a copy of this edition via the Internet Archive. The first edition is available onsite from ECCO.

10. David Ricardo, On the principles of political economy, and taxation (1817)

You can read our copy of the first edition at home via HathiTrust.

Theresa Bernstein, The Readers, 1914

11. John Stuart Mill, Principles of political economy: with some of their applications to social philosophy (1848)

You can read our copy of the second edition at home via the HathiTrust.

12. Karl Marx, Das Kapital (1867 --)

You can read at home this 1903 translation edited by Engels, via HathiTrust.

13. W. Stanley Jevons, Theory of Political Economy (1871)

At home you can read a first edition from our partners at the HathiTrust.

14. Leon Walras, Eléments d'économie politique pure (1874)

If your French isn't up to the first edition, you can read onsite our reprint of the 1954 translation.

15. Alfred Marshall, Principles of Economics (1890)

At home you can read the first edition via HathiTrust.

16. Thorstein Veblen, Theory of Business Enterprise (1904)

At home you can read a 1912 edition from the University of Minnesota.

17. Joseph Schumpeter, Theorie der wirtschaftlichen entwicklung (1912)

If you don't beat the rush for our one circulating copy of the 1934 English translation, you can always exercise your German on the first edition in HathiTrust.

18. Wesley Clair Mitchell, Business Cycles (1913)

We have a print copy for onsite reading, or you can read at home this one, thanks to our friends at the Federal Reserve Bank.

19. John Maynard Keynes, General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money (1936)

You can join the queue for one of the circulating copies of a later edition, or you can read the first edition onsite. We wouldn't want to interfere with the incentive for Keynes to create more work. Oh wait.

20. John Hicks, Value and Capital (1939)

The first edition can be read onsite.

Johann Hamza, A Gentleman Reading in a Library

Downloading Kindle Books: An Updated Visual Guide

J. Souce, AskNYPL — Thu, 29 May 2014 13:56:21 -0400

My friends and colleagues Ruth Rodriguez at the Francis Martin Library and Lauren Lampasone in Reference and Research Services have both written excellent blogs posts, including ones that detail how to get free ebooks from eNYPL to your Kindle. Recently both the library and Overdrive have redesigned interfaces, and so some of the great screen captures on those useful instructional blogs have changed.

This sort of thing will always happen, but the important thing to remember is whether you're using the BiblioCommons single login, or logging directly into our Overdrive site from our website, free books can be downloaded to your Kindle. Now at the time of writing, June 2014, Kindle formatted titles are not compatible with 3M. There are workarounds and hacks, but we don’t support this activity. If you just want to find Kindle formatted titles that are compatible with your Kindle or other devices you’ll need the following.

A valid NYPL card
Your four digit PIN
An internet connection (A WiFi connection. Yes, you can do this using NYPL WiFi at your local branch on your own laptop.)
Your Kindle device or Kindle app
Amazon Account

Open http://ebooks.nypl.org and select the option under All Formats to Kindle Books.

The default borrowing for ebooks, like the Kindle format, is 14 days, but prior to check-out and downloading, one can set the loan periods to either 7,14, or 21 days.

The search feature in BiblioCommons is good, however, a lot of readers tell me that it’s not so clear as to how one can search or limit the format in BiblioCommons, so for our purposes today, I’d suggest just logging into http://ebooks.nypl.org and limiting your search to the Kindle format and then add any author or title information, now just so you know, the Overdrive search is not as robust as BiblioCommons, so I generally keep the searches simple. Some titles you will need to enter a waiting queue, due to the title's popularity, but other titles you may find can be borrowed immediately. A new feature added by Overdrive is the "read in your browser" feature. You will need a live internet connection, however you can also opt to simply download the Kindle title, you will of course need the Kindle app. If you’re downloading to a Kindle device, you’re good to go.

Select the format you wish to download. Not all formats are available for all titles.

An important point to mention is that you will not need to pay or buy ebooks, however, you will need a Amazon account. When you choose the Kindle format, the check-out borrowing process will switch you over from your library account, to “get library book.” The Library purchases the digital licensed copies for you to borrow. In order for you to borrow those copies, at this point you’ll be prompted to enter your Amazon account and password information. I usually download my Kindle ebooks via a wi fi connection, but you can also transfer your books via a USB cable.

You may either have your Kindle book delivered via your wireless network, or tranfer the content from a computer to your Kindle device.

Support & Tutorials

Here are some links to tutorial info and an overview of eNYPL Downloadable Collection. Log-in with a valid library card number and 4 digit PIN at: http://ebooks.nypl.org

1. Lending Policy Information

2. Software Downloads from Overdrive: Overdrive Media Console

3. Video Help. Quick video instruction for a host of devices.

4. eBook Central: Free library class instruction schedules & help guides:

Our upcoming ebook class schedule.

Our other innovative technology courses.

If you don't like the future you see, build one in its place, and if you don't see a title in our catalog, please suggest it.

Reading Trollope on My iPhone: Confessions of a Midlife eBook Convert

Elizabeth Waters, AskNYPL — Fri, 03 Jan 2014 10:10:53 -0500

Do you feel that e-books are just not right for you? Download one and you might be surprised. I was...

While I'm not what you'd call an early adopter of technology, I'm not exactly a Luddite either. However, it was only a couple of winters ago, that I finally discovered that e-books, like their printed siblings, are eminently readable! To be honest, I was a bit skeptical about the e-book reading experience, at least on a personal level. Working at the Library, I had learned quite a bit about e-books in theory: where to find them, how to borrow and download them from the NYPL, which e-readers and devices could be used to read library e-books, but as a reader, I had yet to take the e-book plunge myself. As we prepare for another eBook Central this January to help people borrow and download free e-books from the NYPL, I see that in my own NYPL account, I currently have four print books and four e-books checked out and five print books and seven ebooks on hold. It now seems incredible to me that there was a time (just two short years ago) when I wasn't reading and loving e-books.

My first e-book was a classic, The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes. I wanted to reread some of Conan Doyle's original stories before reading Anthony Horowitz's new Sherlock Holmes novel, The House of Silk, for the January 2012 Reader's Den discussion, and there were no print copies available on the shelf. An impatient reader, I turned instead to the Always Available e-books section in the Overdrive e-books collection. These are books in the public domain, digitized by Project Gutenberg, and you can download and keep as many as you like for as long as you like! Just this past week, for example, Project Gutenberg was an easy way for me to quickly get a copy of George Eliot's Middlemarch to reread in time for author Rebecca Mead's My Life in Middlemarch talk on January 29 at Live from the NYPL. In fact, since my inital Adventures of Sherlock Holmes download, I've accumulated a veritable library of classics on my phone, including quite a few novels by the prolific 19th century British writer, Anthony Trollope.

Years ago, a friend passed along a copy of Trollope's Can You Forgive Her?, the first in his six-novel cycle that has come to be known as The Pallisers. Although I'm a longtime lover of fat 19th century novels, a 700-page examination of Victorian marriage mores was apparently not what I was looking for at that particular moment. I read the first few chapters, was distracted by something and put the book down, never to pick it up again. I had devoured Dickens, Eliot, Gaskell, and the Brontes but had somehow never completed a Trollope novel until ... I downloaded the public domain e-book of Can You Forgive Her? on a whim almost two years ago. This time I became engrossed in the political and matrimonial maneuvering depicted in the novel, appreciating the sharp social commentary.

In fact, I enjoyed reading Can You Forgive Her? so much that when I finished it, a week or so later, I immediately downloaded the next novel in the sequence, Phineas Finn, and continued reading steadily for about five weeks until I had come to the end of the last Pallisers novel, The Duke's Children. I found Trollope's political novels to have great resonance in 2012, a Presidential election year. The politicians inhabiting that 19th century parliamentary world are quite recognizable today and Trollope's comments still surprisingly pertinent. When Plantagenet Palliser observes to Phineas Finn in The Duke's Children that "the idea that political virtue is all on one side is both mischievous and absurd," he could be describing our 21st century political landscape.

I imagine that if I had picked up a print copy of Can You Forgive Her? two years ago, I would have thoroughly enjoyed the book in that format, too. But there was something about reading this long novel on my little iPhone that was beguilingly comfortable. People who haven't tried it often ask, "But how can you read on that little screen?" The answer for me is, one or two paragraphs at a time! I never thought about how many pages I had left to read while working my way through Can You Forgive Her? ; I just kept reading. I've found the options to change the font, text size, background color and brightness available in Overdrive and other e-book apps to be a real boon. There are other physical advantages to reading on my phone that I've come to greatly appreciate, such as being able to read in bed without leaving a light on or having to constantly shift around a heavy volume to give my hands and arms a rest. And although drinking coffee on the subway is frowned upon, I confess to sometimes sipping my morning brew while reading one-handed on my phone.

Another aspect of e-book reading that can become addictive is their 24-hour availability. As I was reading through the Pallisers series, I loved being able to seamlessly download the next novel in the sequence as soon as I was ready for it. I was not quite so lucky later that year when I started reading George R. R. Martin's hugely popular Song of Ice and Fire series. After reading A Game of Thrones, I was hooked and wanted to immediately download A Clash of Kings. Alas, I was not alone in this desire, so I needed to place holds and wait for a while between books until it was my turn to check out and download a copy.

In nearly two years of avid e-book reading, despite encountering waiting lists for some popular titles, my experience has been that I always find something I want to read that is available at that moment. In Overdrive, I browse my favorite subjects and genres using the menus on the left side of the screen and then click on the Available Now tab above the results list to only see books I can check out immediately. The 3M Cloud Library app also allows you to apply a filter to show only books that are available to check out and then to browse titles by category. Last winter, for example, I spent many happy weeks engrossed in Laurie R. King's masterful Mary Russell & Sherlock Holmes series, easily downloading one book after the next from 3M.

And I found an illuminating biography in Overdrive—The Tigress of Forlì by Elizabeth Lev—that let me check the accuracy of the portrayal of Caterina Sforza in the television series The Borgias. You can always find something worth reading while waiting for your e-holds!

In fairness I should mention that I have encountered a few drawbacks reading e-books. Maps and illustrations can be problematic when reading on a small screen. I was frustrated at not being able to clearly see the map of Westeros and the lands across the Narrow Sea while reading A Song of Ice and Fire on my phone, but this would not have been a problem on a larger eReader or tablet screen. And while I'm a big fan and reader of public domain e-books—I'm thrilled to have all six Austen novels on my phone to read anytime, anywhere—I sometimes miss the critical introductions and editorial notes that I would find in, say, an Oxford World's Classic or Penguin edition. This added material can enrich our understanding of the time and place we're reading about, as well as offer insight into the author and the work itself. I found that using the Wikipedia app or a Google search on my phone as I read through the Pallisers novels was a pretty effective substitute when I wanted to find out what the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster did or when British Members of Parliament were first paid for their service (Answer: 1911). The Trollope Society website and the Victorian Web were also wonderful sources for background information.

Discovering The Trollope Society on Twitter also enhanced my Pallisers reading experience.So far, I find I'm a somewhat less omnivorous digital reader than I am in print. I read news and trade articles on a computer, phone, or tablet screen all the time, and I've read several biographies and some narrative nonfiction, like Mark Kurlansky's Cod, on my phone, but I haven't yet tried any really dense nonfiction in e-book format. Yes, you can create bookmarks and add notes to e-books, and a good e-book edition will have links that allow you to quickly tap in and out of notes and references. Yet I somehow still feel that the tactile experience of flipping back through pages to verify something read in a previous chapter, browsing the chapter headings at the tops of pages, scanning the print index, and penciling notes in the margins are integral to the sustained reading for information experience for me. That said, since I had never read any e-books until two years ago, I can't discount further changes in my reading habits to come…

Am I abandoning print for digital? Absolutely not. I still prefer to read a printed page in natural light when possible. My ideal reading experience involves a physical book, a lounge chair on a deck beneath a canopy of trees, and a cup of perfectly brewed tea at my elbow. But because I love to read all the time, I'll happily take my books any way I can get them. If I want to request a popular title from the NYPL, like Donna Tartt's The Goldfinch, I'll check the ratio of holds to number of copies for the e-book and print formats and request whichever seems likely to be available first. e-books have expanded my reading options and given me greater, often instantaneous, access to many books, for which this reader is grateful.

If you're ready to take the ebook plunge, we're ready to help! Bring your iPad, Kindle, Nook, smartphone, or other e-reader, and your NYPL library card to eBook Central at the Mid-Manhattan Library. We're offering walk-in, hands-on help hours from 12-2 p.m., Monday, January 6 to Saturday, January 18. We'll show you how to download library e-book apps and access digital copies of our materials. Many other NYPL branches also offer hands-on e-book classes and help sessions. You can also find instructions to follow on your own on the eBook Central page. However you choose to do it, I wish you lots of engaging, inspiring, informative and fun reading in 2014!

Tablet Buying Guide: A Primer for Technophobes, Luddites and the Just Plain Confused

Joshua Soule, Spuyten Duyvil Library — Fri, 20 Dec 2013 04:04:39 -0500

Every year it's the same thing. "Buy my super-duper awesome/hallowed/glorious razzle-dazzle technology coated in gold-flecked app sauce because we're the best and the rest stink!" Nice sales pitch? Eh. Overwhelming? Yep. Confusing for some? Oh yeah. It can leave you feeling like this:

And it only gets more frenzied during the holiday shopping season as everyone from Apple to LG trots out their blank glass slabs and requests, nay DEMANDS we glue our eyeballs to a screen the size of a comic book. Hopefully this guide will take some of the mystery out of your tablet shopping for a loved one. Or shopping for yourself, even. I'm cool with that.

This no-frills guide will help you make your choice. You might even choose not to buy one at all! I'm cool with that too. However, this guide will not recommend which tablet to purchase. No "Google Rules, Apple drools!" or "Jingle Bells, Samsung smells!" here. All the information here was gleaned from manufacturer websites, Wikipedia and personal experience. For brevity's sake, I will only cover models released this year. Otherwise, we could be here all holiday season. Here's how the guide will break down:

Part I - Quick and Dirty Glossary

Part II - Tablets. Skip to here if you want to skip the glossary and jump right to the meat of things. I don't recommend this though, if you're a first-time buyer.

The aformentioned companies, among others, like to dazzle with technical terms and detailed device specifications when advertising their wares. You will likely run across these when shopping online or in a store. Let me demystify some for you here:

PPI - One of the most common terms thrown around, PPI stands for "pixels per inch" and is a measure of how sharp the display is. The higher this number, the sharper the tablet screen. Practically speaking, anything above 260 PPI will deliver a clear, high-definition image on your screen unless you're the type to use a tablet with your nose mashed against the glass. FYI, screen resolutions are also shown as horizontal by vertical numbers of pixels like so: 1920 x 1200. The larger number refers to the horizontal pixels, the smaller to the vertical when the tablet is held in landscape.

App - Short for application. These are programs devoted to specific tasks such as watching video, reading ebooks, or playing games. Available through app stores from Apple, Google, Amazon and Microsoft.

Retina - Apple's marketing term for display sharpness.

Android - Google's mobile operating system, used by nearly all tablet manufacturers aside from Apple and Microsoft. Tends to be heavily customized by non-Google tablet manufacturers.

iOS - Apple's mobile operating system, only found on Apple devices. Don't even think about looking for it elsewhere.

Windows RT - Microsoft's tablet operating system, a steamlined verson of Windows 8 to allow for use on mobile devices.

IPS - Stands for In-Plane Switching. This is a type of display that offers wider viewing angles than standard LCD screens. In other words, Grandma, Grandpa and all ten grandkids can squeeze in on the couch and still see whatever Little Johnny is watching on his new toy. All the tablets mentioned here use this technology.

Quad/dual/octo-core - Refers to the number of CPUs a tablet has. Let's make it simple. All the tablets discussed below feel perfectly zippy and capable of running the latest software available in various app stores. The number of cores doesn't merit serious consideration when buying the current crop of devices.

Snapdragon - A commonly used processor in Android devices. Manufactured by Qualcomm.

A5/A6/A7 - Apple's name for its tablet processors.

Exynos - Samsung's processor, found in some Samsung tablets. Only some? Yes, others use Snapdragons. Long story.

Intel Core - A full-powered computer processor found in some Microsoft tablets.

Tegra 4 - NVIDIA's mobile processor.

MP - Megapixels. Anyone who uses cameras is familiar with this term. Also, most smartphones and cameras come with higher megapixel counts than tablets, so please don't look silly by using your new tab to snap family photos. As an aside, all the tablets discussed here have front-facing cameras to allow for video-chatting.

Here's a rundown on the tablets themselves and what to look for. I will list these in order by manufacturer. All of these tablets have at least 16 gigabytes of storage space, which is more than adequate for most users. Unless you've got 15 million songs recorded at the highest possible digital fidelity, but who does that?

Amazon Kindle Fire HDX - Amazon's current lineup comes in two flavors: the Fire HDX 7 and Fire HDX 8.9. The HDX 7 is a 7-inch slate with a 1920x1200 (323 ppi) resolution. The HDX 8.9 has 339 ppi squeezed into a 2560x1600 8.9-inch display. These models run from $229 to $544 depending on display size, storage and whether you opt for cellular connections in addition to wi-fi.

The Kindles come with the new Mayday feature which allows you to contact Amazon directly for technical support via video chat. They can't see you but you can see them and they can see your screen, allowing them to walk you through tech issues. In other words, if Mom or Dad drives you nuts with tech support requests, this is a good feature. Amazon also uses a heavily-customized version of Android called Mojito for its operating system. People who purchase a Fire will have access to Amazon's entire digital library, including Amazon Prime videos which are not available on other Android devices without using workarounds.

Unlike most Android tablets, however, Kindles will not give you access to the official Google Play Store for Android apps, only Amazon's app store. If you want the full app selection, perhaps go elsewhere. If you're content with a lot of movie-watching and book-reading, the Fire HDXs are fine choices.

Apple iPad - This is the 200-ton whale of the tablet world. For many people, this is the device that springs to mind when you say "tablet." That has changed a bit recently since the number of Android tablets on the market has increased drastically. Apple, like Amazon, has two new tablets available this holiday season: the iPad Mini with Retina display (bit of a mouthful but hey, take it up with marketing) and the iPad Air, which also has Apple's trademarked Retina display.

The Retina Mini and the Air use the same display resolution of 2048x1536. This turns into 326 ppi for the 7.9-inch Mini and 264 ppi for the 9.7-inch Air. Again, unless you're holding the thing an inch from your face, the displays on both of these will work just fine for watching Netflix or reading one of our ebooks.

"Whoa whoa whoa," I hear you saying. "How can the same resolution mean different amounts of ppi? Does that mean one isn't as good as the other?" The two tablets have different ppi counts because the Mini is fitting the same number of pixels into a smaller area.

Prices run from $399 all the way to $929 depending, once again, on the amount of storage space, connection options and screen size. Hint: the fully tricked out 9.7-inch Air is the one that will run $929. A caveat: if you're shopping for a Mini with Retina, you must make sure that's what the box says, as last year's Mini is still available for sale and store flyers do not make it easy to distinguish between the two. A good indicator is the price. If it's not in the neighborhood of $399, it's not the Retina model.

Apple's App Store does boast the largest number of apps among all the app stores. More specifically, it has the largest number of tablet specific apps, meaning they are optimized for the larger displays on tablets as opposed to smartphones. If you want app selection as well as streaming video, ebooks and Internet, these are a good choice.

Google Nexus 7 - Google partnered with Asus to manufacture their 7-inch slab. The Nexus 7 runs Google's Android operating system free of any outside modification by manufacturers like Samsung or Amazon. Also, being part of the Nexus line, it will always receive the latest updates to Android as long as the hardware can support it. This is similar to Apple's practice of upgrading iOS even on devices that are several years old. Other Android device manufacturers tend to take a longer time to update the operating system.

Whether this is a strength or weakness is largely a matter of user experience. What I can say is that the Nexus 7's screen is just as sharp as the competition's. At 1920x1200, it packs 323 ppi into the 7-inch screen so movies and ebooks will look just as good here as on other slates. It comes with full access to the Google Play Store AND you can install other app stores such as Amazon's if you like comparison shopping. This tab also comes pre-loaded with Google Now, a personal assistant that utilizes the GPS and other data to provide info about local conditions like traffic or weather, keep track of appointments, so on. Like having a secretary in your pocket.

Google Play is the second largest app store behind Apple, but is rapidly catching up although it does not have as many tablet-optimized apps. The Nexus 7 can run you $229 for the base model up to $349 for the tricked out LTE version. eBooks, streaming movies and games look fine here too, making these a good choice. Are you detecting a pattern?

Microsoft Surface - Microsoft was a late entry to the tablet wars with its Surface line last year. This year it offers up two Surface tablets for your perusal. There's the Surface 2 which utilizes Windows RT, a version of Windows 8 specifically designed to run on the lower-power tablet processors. On the higher end is the Surface Pro 2 which runs more like a fully fledged laptop than a tablet thanks to its Intel processor and full version of Windows 8. Both tabs sport a 1920 x 1080 resolution on a 10.6-inch screen, bringing their ppi count to 206. One more time, your streaming flicks, gaming and library ebooks will look perfectly fine on these displays. They're high definition displays, meaning you won't see a pixel unless you make like a kid in a candy store window. Yes, I know some people do. Shush.

One of the main selling points Microsoft uses is the cover, which doubles as protection and as a keyboard. These do add $169 to the base price of $449 for the basic Surface 2 and $899 for the Pro. Another selling point has been the built-in kickstand on both devices, which is nice for propping on a table to watch your flicks. Both devices will also run Microsoft Office, with the Surface 2 running a streamlined version for ease of use on tablets. The Windows app shop does not boast as many programs as the competition, but all the important ones like Overdrive are there. You can get your Netflix or Hulu fix as well as download a Kindle or Nook app for your ebook needs. App selection is not as much of an issue on the Pro since it runs the full-fledged Windows operating system which means it will satisfy the Skyrim or Warcraft player in your life if that's the goal. These also make good choices for your special techie.

They're all fine choices, really. It's hard to argue for one device's superiority over another when all of them have crisp displays, speedy processors and plenty of content choices available. My final piece of advice? Go to the store and play with each device. Pick them up, see how they feel in the hand. See if you like how they work, whether they're responsive enough to your touch, and how the displays look under the harsh store lighting.

If it's not comfortable to hold, feels too heavy, or looks washed out to you, then all the bells and whistles will mean nothing. All of these tablets will do the important stuff like email, Internet surfing, movie watching and ebook reading. Most important of all, they all let you check out our ebooks using Overdrive! Pro tip: it really doesn't matter what color the tablet is either. Black, white, hot pink, it all works.

December Reader's Den: An Introduction to Caleb Carr's The Alienist

Joshua Soule, Spuyten Duyvil Library — Mon, 02 Dec 2013 02:02:53 -0500

"An ungodly pummeling on the door of my grandmother's house at 19 Washington Square North brought first the maid and then my grandmother herself to the doorways of their bedrooms at two o'clock on the morning of March 3, 1896."

The gruesome case at the heart of Caleb Carr's The Alienist begins at this ungodly hour in an ungodly time of New York City's history, the turn of the 20th century, that brutal period when Teddy Roosevelt served as New York City Police Commissioner. This is a city enduring the clash of extreme wealth and absolute poverty, mixed with the corruption of the late-19th century NYPD. It's a city that sees the gastronomic delights of Delmonico's heyday as well as the seedier thrills of brothels catering to rich and poor, conventional and unorthodox tastes. It is a heady stew and a ripe environment for birthing an abomination unseen in New York City at the time: the modern serial killer.

New types of crime demand new types of investigators. From the book's note—"Prior to the twentieth century, persons suffering from mental illness were thought to be 'alienated,' not only from the rest of society but from their own true natures. Those experts who studied mental pathologies were therefore known as alienists."

John Moore is summoned to the scene of a gruesome crime that will eventually involve his friend, Dr. Laszlo Kreizler, the titular alienist. The novel is a murder mystery and a dive into many of the period details that gave New York its peculiar character in the 1890s. Readers will encounter historical personages such as muckraking journalists Lincoln Steffens and Jacob Riis, gangs descended from the infamous Bowery Boys, and the august Roosevelt himself in his prime. This is a city not far removed from the Civil War and its accompanying draft riots, one on the cusp of the boom leading to the Roaring Twenties.

Carr's attention to historical detail is impressive, even including popular brand names of the time such as John Moore's preferred toothpaste, Sozodont. There are references to many vanished parts of New York City, including the old Croton Reservoir before it's demolition. Our flagship building sits on that site now and parts of the original reservoir can still be seen around the South Court.

In the coming weeks we will discuss this attention to detail as well as the historical circumstances surrounding Kreizler's investigation. Here is the reading schedule*:

Week One: Introduction
Week Two: Part I
Week Three: Part II
Week Four: Part III

*I read this on a Nook and ebook page count tend to differ from physical page counts, so I will only list the book's parts in the schedule, not the page numbers.

Around the World with Travel Guides

Lauren Lampasone, Senior Librarian, Stavros Niarchos Foundation Library (SNFL) — Wed, 23 Oct 2013 06:06:04 -0400

In Europe on 5 Wrong Turns a Day, Doug Mack takes a decades old travel guide and puts it to the modern-day test. Arthur Frommer's 1963 edition of Europe on 5 Dollars a Day (we still have several of these in our collections available for your perusal) was the book that got regular Americans, including Mack's mother, excited about crossing the Atlantic for the first time. Mack decides to use it without consulting any other guides to get a better sense of how much has changed, both in terms of recommended places to go and the price points (spoiler alert: nothing costs $5 anymore), as well as the overall cultural assumptions of Americans going abroad.

The travel guide can be a lens through which we see and experience other cultures and histories. Throughout Wrong Turns, Mack is conflicted about what he thinks he might be missing as a result of sticking exclusively to an outdated book. He also becomes overwhelmed by kitsch and tourist bait. He yearns to experience the great sights and tributes to history, but somehow without the cheapening effect of witnessing it all as just another tourist, snapping the same photos as everyone else. Towards the end of his grand tour, he seeks out suggestions online on forums and from his social media circle. But this strategy isn't quite met with success, either. In the end he finds the value in being a little lost, and not always being comfortable, as some of the most eye-opening and rewarding parts of travel.

If you are planning a trip, or want to go somewhere new but aren't sure where, you have to start with a guide book. I'm not just saying that as a librarian! There are so many different publishers of guide books, and they all have their own style and tone. Take out a few and decide which one best matches your personality, budget and sense of wanderlust.

Better yet, download them to your e-reader of choice. Chances are you will want to take your favorite guide with you. Since books can weigh down your luggage (and you wouldn't want to leave a library book in a hotel room halfway around the world) e-books are convenient and easy to carry. You can also highlight and make notes of what you want to do. Kindles and other e-ink readers are great for reading, but a tablet device will be better for viewing photographs and maps.

Whatever you do, get the current year edition if possible when looking at listings and reviews, or else double-check online before you make plans.

Berlitz / e-books
Insight Guides / e-Books
Known for its language courses and learning tools, Berlitz also offers guides and pocket guides to many countries.

Blue Guides
For the scholarly traveler who wants to know more about the art and architecture of a place than the standard guides provide, with basic travel information kept to a minimum. The first guide was London and its Environs, published in 1918 and available online through HathiTrust.

Cadogan Guides
Provides slightly more depth and historical background than standard guides.

DK Eyewitness Travel / e-books available through GVRL
Highly visual guides with extensive color photos and illustrations, these guides are well suited to kids and young adults.

Fodor's / e-Books
Random House's line of travel guides, written by locals and covering travel thematically as well as geographically.

Frommer's Guides / e-books
The grandfather of budget travel, as detailed above. In the essay "Eating and Sleeping With Arthur Frommer," available through New York Times (1851-2009) and her collection Wallflower at the Orgy, Nora Ephron wrote a critical profile of the man, who is still blogging about travel on his website 50 years later.

Written and updated by Harvard students, and geared toward the youthful and low-budget traveler (when hostels and dance clubs are your priorities). Guides also feature a "Beyond Tourism" chapter that lists volunteer, study, and work opportunities abroad.

Lonely Planet / e-books
The largest travel guide publisher. Covers most countries in Europe, Asia, Africa, and the Americas, clearly and comprehensively with low and mid-price recommendations.

Michelin Green Guides
Tourist guides with history, customs, art and culture of a place, along with highly respected recommendations and star ratings. Like the Red Guides, there is a three-star system for recommending sights: "worth a trip" to "worth a detour," and "interesting."

Michelin Red Guides
Covers restaurants and hotels; bestows their famous stars to the very best. Begun in France as a guide for motorists, sponsored by the tire company.

Moon Handbooks
Geared toward the outdoorsy independent traveler, Moon started with guides to Asia and now provides ample coverage of the Americas and much of the globe.

National Geographic Traveler
Travel guides full of the gorgeous photography you would expect from NatGeo. Why even bother with the plane ticket? Most guides include suggested walking/driving tours.

Not For Tourists
While designed for residents and workers in a particular city, these guides can still be useful to tourists. Includes recommended businesses, restaurants and sights in addition to the essentials like grocery stores, parking lots, banks, and pharmacies.

Rick Steves / e-books
An American everyman and fixture on PBS stations (you can also see him on Hulu and YouTube), Rick Steves takes a easygoing and pragmatic approach to traveling Europe. His books are constantly being revised and sights re-rated (zero to three pyramids, with three being "can't miss.") Rick Steves also publishes a book on general travel skills called Europe Through the Back Door. See also Travel as a Political Act, Steves's non-guide book about why he thinks Americans should travel.

Rough Guides / e-books available through GVRL
A British series, with a slightly different perspective than American guides. Initially geared towards backpackers, now covers all budgets. Greater context on historical sights. (Rough Guide also publishes guides to culture and technology that display in these search results.)

Time Out
Another British series (New Yorkers might be familiar with Time Out New York though) with an emphasis on entertainment, youth culture, and the best places to eat and drink.

Wallpaper* City Guide
Recommendations from the magazine of the same name, which is focused on design, fashion, and entertainment.

On the Web

Wikivoyage
Part of the Wikimedia Foundation family, a worldwide travel guide that anyone can edit.

Travel.State.Gov
After they send you your passport, be sure to check back here for foreign entry requirements, travel warnings and more from the U.S. Department of State. The Special Circumstances sections of some Country Specific Information documents contain information about attitudes, harassment, or arrests relating to LGBT travelers. Travel.State.Gov content is also available through the free Smart Traveler App for iOS and Android.

Mango Languages
If you are going to a place where you don't speak the language, make sure to take a few lessons on Mango before you set sail (or be a procrastinator like me and take a last minute German lesson on your iPhone over breakfast, err... Frühstück.)

Where are you going, and what guide is taking you there?

Binding Your Own E-books: Part 1 (The Internet Archive BookReader)

Tue, 25 Jun 2013 03:03:16 -0400

The Wizard of Oz in the BookReaderIn 2005, the Internet Archive released the first version of their BookReader, a web widget that allows a user to flip through images of book pages with an animation that suggests the turning of physical paper. The current version also allows you to view the images as set of thumbnails or as a vertically scrolling set of page images (like a PDF). The code is open source and written in JavaScript (a computer language that runs entirely in the web browser), so it's very easy to install the widget on any web page. As a result, a lot of libraries and archives have used versions of the code on their own web sites (NYPL uses it on the new Digital Collections platform).

Loading images of book pages into the widget does require a little bit of familiarity with computer code, though. You need to make a list of pointers to images hosted somewhere on the web, and modify a few JavaScript functions to describe how determine the size at which the images should display. To make things a little easier, I've made a modification to the code that allows it to load this information from a Google Spreadsheet.

You can find a example book at this address:

https://s3.amazonaws.com/lpa-musical.nypl.org/BookReader/BookReaderDemo/index.html#0Ag7PrlWT3aWadDdVODJLVUs0a1AtUVlUWlhnXzdwcGc

The book was created from this spreadsheet:

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0Ag7PrlWT3aWadDdVODJLVUs0a1AtUVlUWlhnXzdwcGc#gid=0

(Note that the Google "key," "0Ag7PrlWT3aWadDdVODJLVUs0a1AtUVlUWlhnXzdwcGc" appears in both addresses).If you want to make a book, all you need is a simple three column Google Spreadsheet. Just put the words "image", "width", and "height" in the first three cells of the first row of the Spreadsheet (one word in each cell). If you want, you can also give your book a title by renaming the "sheet" in the first tab at the bottom of the page. You can use copy the spreadsheet example above as a template.

In the first column, paste links to image files on the web (the links should point directly to the image). If you need to upload images, there are a lot of free hosting options including Flickr, Imgur, and Google+.

Now, share the spreadsheet publicly on the web. [EDIT: Do this both by sharing the document publicly, AND by selecting "publish to the web..." from the file menu.] Once you've done that, copy the big long sequence of letters and numbers after "key=" through the hash (#). If you paste that on the end of this address:

https://s3.amazonaws.com/lpa-musical.nypl.org/BookReader/BookReaderDemo/index.html#

You'll find your images have been turned into a book. The code itself is hosted on my GitHub account.

Leave a comment if you have questions/problems.

Reader's Den: The Contract With God Trilogy by Will Eisner - Week 1

Thomas Knowlton, Outreach Librarian, MyLibraryNYC — Fri, 10 May 2013 10:10:28 -0400

For this month's Reader's Den, we'll be hosting an online book discussion of Will Eisner's The Contract With God Trilogy: Life on Dropsie Aveue. This is only the second time we have featured a graphic novel (the first was Joe Sacco's Palestine in October 2010).

However, as part of NYC Summer, we have two more graphic novel discussions coming up: Alan Moore's The Watchmen in July and Leela Corman's Unterzakhn in September! Please visit bit.ly/nycsummer-nypl for the full schedule.

If you need a copy of the book, you can request The Contract With God Trilogy through the NYPL catalog. This compilation (published by W.W. Norton & Company in 2006) consists of three different works: A Contract With God (1978), A Life Force (1983), and Dropsie Avenue: The Neighborhood (1995).

To give us a loose structure for the discussion, I've listed a schedule below, but please feel free to comment on any of the four postings throughout May.

Week 1: Introduction
Week 2: A Contract With God (p. 3-180)
Week 3: A Life Force (p. 181-322)
Week 4: Dropsie Avenue (p. 323-498)

Will Eisner, for many readers, is synonymous with the annual Eisner Awards, which were established in 1988 after the discontinuation of Fantagraphics' Jack Kirby Awards in 1987. The nominees for 2013 were recently announced and this year's winners will be revealed on July 19 at Comic-con International in San Diego.

A Contract With God is sometimes referred to as the "first graphic novel". However, most critics agree that this title most likely belongs to either Gil Kane and Archie Goodwin's Blackmark (1971), Richard Corben's Bloodstar (1976), or George Metzger's Beyond Time and Again (1967-1972). Interestingly, Will Eisner has stated that he originally thought that he had invented the term in a shrewd attempt to gain an audience with the president of Bantam Books, before learning of these earlier works.

Another point of interest is the book's many ties to New York City. Eisner was born in Brooklyn, attended DeWitt Clinton High School in the Bronx. and later taught cartooning at School of Visual Arts. All three stories in this compilation are set in the apartments and surrounding blocks of 55 Dropsie Avenue, a fictional tenemant building inhabited by Dutch, Irish, Italian, and Jewish immigrants in the Bronx.

Lastly, Eisner is also well-known as creator of The Spirit, a masked crimefighter who first appeared in a self-titled newspaper serial in 1940, was later revived in 2006 with a Batman/Spirit crossover by Jeph Loeb and Darwyn Cooke as well as an ongoing series by Cooke, and most recently appeared in the DC Comics First Wave limited series written by Brian Azzarello and spin-off ongoing series in 2010. The Spirit was also adapted in the hyper-stylized, but poorly-received movie by Frank Miller in 2008.

Below are some general questions to get us started:

Are you familiar with Will Eisner? Have you read any Eisner Award-winning graphic novels?
Have you come across any versions of The Spirit mentioned above or seen the Frank Miller film? If so, what did you think?
How does The Contract With God Trilogy compare to other graphic novels you've read, on first glance?

NYPL Blogs: eReading Room

Workout for One: Digital Fitness Videos You Can Do at Home

African Healing Dance

Rodney Yee's Complete Yoga For Beginners (five episodes)

Easy Yoga

Shiva Rea's Mama and Baby Yoga (four episodes)

Easy Tai Chi

Easy Karate

5 Days Fit Pilates (five episodes)

5 Days Fit Abs (five episodes)

Streaming Video with Overdrive: Leading Ladies Edition

Download Your Next Nonfiction Read

BIOGRAPHY & MEMOIR

NEW YORK

FOOD, HEALTH, NATURE, GARDENING

HISTORY & TRAVEL

ARTS, PHOTOGRAPHY, LANGUAGE

ECONOMICS, RACE, SOCIETY & EDUCATION

CRIMINOLOGY, TERRORISM, TRUE CRIME

LGBT, MARRIAGE EQUALITY, RELATIONSHIPS

SCIENCE, & TECHNOLOGY, URBAN PLANNING

POLITICS & GOVERNMENT

RELIGION, PHILOSOPHY & PSYCHOLOGY

E-Book Recommendations to Read in SimplyE

Want more e-book recommendations?

Introducing SimplyE: 300,000 E-Books to Browse, Borrow, and Read

Recommended at Open Book Night: Patron Picks in "E"

Old Favorites

Recent Fiction

Memoirs, Travel, and Exploring

History

Finance and Food

Download Your Next Nonfiction Read: Author @ the Library in "E"

New York City

Biographies and Memoirs

History

Economics, Politics, Sociology

Psychology, Parapsychology, and Self-Help

Performing Arts

Food, Home, Fun

Essential Longform: The Best Harper Lee Reads

Essential Longform: The Best Nirvana Reads

11 Ways to Find Romance

Romance Book Club's Favorite Books:

About Romance Book Club

When the Print Book Would Take Up Your Whole Bag... Try an eBook

How to Clean Things

20 of the Most Important Books for Economics before 1940

1. Aristotle, Politics (250 BCE?)

2. Corpus Juris Canonici (354 - 1505)

3. Luca Pacioli, Summa de arithmetica, geometria, proportioni & proportionalita ... (1494)

4. Thomas Mun, England's Treasure by Forraign Trade (1664)

5. William Petty, Verbum Sapienti (1691)

6.Bernard Mandeville, The Fable of the Bees, or, private vices publick benefits (1714).

7. David Hume, Political Discourses (1752)

8. Adam Smith, An inquiry into the nature and causes of the wealth of nations (1776)

9. Thomas Malthus, An Essay on the Principle of Population (2nd ed. 1803)

10. David Ricardo, On the principles of political economy, and taxation (1817)

11. John Stuart Mill, Principles of political economy: with some of their applications to social philosophy (1848)

12. Karl Marx, Das Kapital (1867 --)

13. W. Stanley Jevons, Theory of Political Economy (1871)

14. Leon Walras, Eléments d'économie politique pure (1874)

15. Alfred Marshall, Principles of Economics (1890)

16. Thorstein Veblen, Theory of Business Enterprise (1904)

17. Joseph Schumpeter, Theorie der wirtschaftlichen entwicklung (1912)

18. Wesley Clair Mitchell, Business Cycles (1913)

19. John Maynard Keynes, General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money (1936)

20. John Hicks, Value and Capital (1939)

Downloading Kindle Books: An Updated Visual Guide

Support & Tutorials

Reading Trollope on My iPhone: Confessions of a Midlife eBook Convert

Tablet Buying Guide: A Primer for Technophobes, Luddites and the Just Plain Confused

December Reader's Den: An Introduction to Caleb Carr's The Alienist

Around the World with Travel Guides

On the Web

Binding Your Own E-books: Part 1 (The Internet Archive BookReader)

Reader's Den: The Contract With God Trilogy by Will Eisner - Week 1

Below are some general questions to get us started: