Award-winning history and nature-based ebook and audiobook told in thrilling narrative style available for free along with online discussion with readers around the world

CLEVELAND – May 9, 2024 – Combining meticulous research with dramatic storytelling, the latest Big Library Read presents a tale with all the wonders of history and the excitement of the best fiction. From May 9-23, Dan Flores’s award-winning Wild New World: The Epic Story of Animals and People in America is available for free as an ebook and audiobook on the Libby app through public libraries. Library card holders can join thousands of others in the world’s largest free digital book club without waitlists or holds, then discuss online. Told in thrilling narrative style and informed by genomic science, evolutionary biology and environmental history, Wild New World is sure to both educate and entertain booklovers.

The Big Library Read is available through more than 22,000 libraries around the world, including approximately 90 percent of public libraries in North America.  Hundreds of thousands of readers are expected to participate. The program is facilitated by OverDrive, the leading digital reading platform for popular ebooks, audiobooks and magazines and creator of the Libby app.

“I’m truly excited to have my latest book, Wild New World, become the featured title for Big Library Read,” said author Dan Flores. “My hope is that the animals and the human characters who appear in Wild New World – and the compassion and empathy I hope the book engenders – give readers and listeners a chance to re-arrange the furniture in their heads about America’s past, present and future.”

Winner of 2023 Rachel Carson Environment Book Award and 2023 National Outdoor Book Award for Natural History Literature, Wild New World is a deep-time history of animals and humans in North America.  Distinguished author Dan Flores’s ambitious history chronicles the epoch in which humans and animals have coexisted in the “wild new world” of North America—a place shaped both by its own grand evolutionary forces and by momentous arrivals from Asia, Africa and Europe. With portraits of iconic creatures such as mammoths, horses, wolves and bison, Flores describes the evolution and historical ecology of North America like never before.

The story begins in 1908, near Folsom, New Mexico, where a cowboy discovers the remains of a herd of extinct giant bison. By examining flint points embedded in the bones, archeologists later determined that a band of humans had killed and butchered the animals 12,450 years ago. This discovery vastly expanded America’s known human history but also revealed the long-standing danger humans presented to the continent’s evolutionary richness.

Wild New World was published as an ebook by W. W. Norton & Company and audiobook by HighBridge. The title can be read without waitlists or holds on all major computers and devices through Libby or libbyapp.com, including iPhone®, iPad® and Android™ phones and tablets. Through Libby, readers can also “send to Kindle®” [U.S. libraries only]. The title will automatically expire at the end of the lending period, and there are no late fees.

Big Library Read is an international reading program that connects readers around the world with an ebook through public libraries. Wild New World is the 33rd selection of this program which began in 2013 and takes place three times per year.  Find more information about Big Library Read.  Download Libby, use Libby in the browser (libbyapp.com) or visit your local public library to get started.

About OverDrive

OverDrive is a mission-based company that stands with libraries. Named a Certified B Corp in 2017, OverDrive serves more than 92,000 libraries and schools in 115 countries with the industry’s largest digital catalog of ebooks, audiobooks, magazines, video and other content. OverDrive empowers libraries and schools by expanding access for all through tireless industry advocacy and consistent innovation. Award-winning apps and services include the Libby library reading app, the Sora student reading app, Kanopy, the leading video streaming app for libraries and colleges, and TeachingBooks.net, which offers one of the largest catalogs of supplemental materials that enhance literacy outcomes. Founded in 1986, OverDrive is based in Cleveland, Ohio USA. www.overdrive.com

 

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