Open Book: November 2023

Open book
In this issue

Letter from CELA’s Executive Director

Over the last month, many of Canada’s most prestigious literary awards have announced their winners, and we are delighted to have them in our collection. You can find them on our Awards page. CELA has long worked with awards like the Scotiabank Giller prize, The Governor General’s Literary Awards, and the Writer’s Trust, among others, to ensure we have their shortlisted or nominated titles available on the date of their announcements. Readers with print disabilities deserve equitable and timely access to the books that are part of our collective conversation, and this is one way our partners can make that happen.

We’ve been impressed with the diverse authors, subjects and perspectives featured as part of this year’s awards season. Diversity in our collection is a key value for us, and we’ve been reminded again recently about how important it is for libraries to offer equitable access to books that reflect the communities we serve. If you haven’t had a chance to read any of the award titles yet, there is something for everyone.

Our team is launching an additional feature as part of our Envoy Connect service. The Envoy Connect can now be delivered preloaded with books from your CELA bookshelf. This added feature means your new Envoy Connect will be ready to read, right out of the box. Learn more from our story below.

Just a few days ago, we concluded our braille survey, and I want to thank everyone who responded. Our team will take some time to compile and evaluate the results, and your input will help guide us as we work to improve our braille services.

And as we are thinking about braille, don’t forget to make a note of World Braille Month, happening in January. The organizing team is hard at work to bring new and interesting programming to the braille community. More details will be available in our December newsletter and on our social media channels over the coming weeks.

If you want to offer us feedback on our projects, our collection, our services or this newsletter, the best way to reach us is through our email feedback@celalibrary.ca. We’d love to hear from you. Your opinion matters to us.

Happy reading,
Laurie Davidson, Executive Director

Award winners and nominees

Cover of the book In the Upper Country by Kai Thomas.We are delighted to have many recently announced award winners in our collection. We want to thank the various award organizations who work with us to ensure that their nominees and winners are available in our collection as soon as they are announced. Our goal is to ensure that people with print disabilities can easily enjoy these and participate in our collective conversations.

This year, we've been impressed with the diversity of the authors, stories and topics, and we think there's something for everyone! 

Congratulations to all the winners. 

Scotiabank Giller Prize:  Study For Obedience by Sarah Bernstein

Governor General Fiction Award: Chrysalis by Anuja Varghese 

Governor General's Non-Fiction Award: Unearthing by Kyo Maclear

Atwood Gibson Writers' Trust Fiction Prize : In the Upper Country: A Novel By Kai Thomas.

Hilary Weston Writers’ Trust Prize for Nonfiction: Ordinary Notes by Christina Sharpe

We also want to congratulate all of the nominees on the recently announced 2024 Evergreen Award longlist.

You can find these titles, and many more on our Awards page.

Envoy Connect now ready to read, right out of the box

An arrow pointing to the right at an Envoy Connect device. It is a blue and black rectangular device with 6 buttons in the bottom half of the device and the round speaker on the top half.In May, CELA launched a new service using the Envoy Connect, an easy to use, portable and affordable audiobook player which can be used to read CELA’s accessible materials. Our users have loved its simple interface and the great price point.

Now we are delighted to offer a new addition to this service making it even easier to get started with Envoy Connect. CELA users can now order an Envoy Connect which comes preloaded with books from their CELA bookshelf. When the new Envoy Connect arrives it will be ready to read, straight from the box.

There is no extra charge for this new Envoy Connect option. And once you are finished reading your preloaded books, you can add more using our easy-to-use CELA Connect software or return the Envoy Connect to us by mail, to have new books loaded and your device returned.

Read more about this new service on our blog.

Using Thorium Reader with CELA Titles

A large computer monitor displaying the Thorium logo sits on a white desk with a keyboard and mouse in front of it. A plant, a pair of glasses, a stack of notebooks and a cup with pens and pencils in it are also on the desk.Thorium Reader is an accessible and free desktop application created by EDRLab. It allows users to read digital books in various formats.

These formats include: ePub, accessible PDF documents, as well as books in DAISY audio and text formats. It operates on either Windows or Mac computers and can be used with screen readers and other assistive technologies, such as screen magnification programs. It is not available for mobile phones or tablets.

CELA has recently created a new resource to assist users who would like to use Thorium Reader. You can find the resource on our Tutorials page.

Humanware Brailliant and CELA

Great news!

Because Humanware has recently added CELA as one of their participating libraries, CELA readers can now use their Humanware Brailliant BI 40X and Humanware Brailliant BI 20X braille display to read their CELA books in text format or audio using our Direct to Player service. Our testers have said the sign in and download process is easy and that the braille display key commands are useful for navigation.

Books to read for the holidays!

Cover of the book And so this is christmas: 51 seasonally adjusted poems By Brian Bilston.The winter holiday season seems to lend itself to curling up with a good book. We have been adding a number of new holiday themed titles to our collection recently. There's something for everyone! 

We've chosen a few to highlight but there are more than a dozen on the list and we will be adding more in the next week or two. 

And So This Is Christmas: 51 seasonally adjusted poems By Brian Bilston

Hercule Poirot's Silent Night: A novel (New Hercule Poirot Mystery #5) By Sophie Hannah

Charlie Brown's Christmas Miracle: The inspiring, untold story of the making of a holiday classic By Michael Keane

Is listening to a book the same as reading it?

Dan Willingham, a bald man wearing glasses and a blue shirt and suit jacket smiles at the camera.The Current, a radio show on the CBC, recently ran a segment in which host Matt Galloway interviewed Dan Willingham, a psychology professor at the University of Virginia.

Dan is the author of the book The Reading Mind: A Cognitive Approach to Understanding How the Mind Reads. He and Matt explored his research about "whether reading versus listening to an audiobook impacts the brain differently, and whether listening counts as cheating".

Find the interview and a summary on the CBC website.

Mark your calendar! World Braille Month is coming soon

A pair of hands guides another pair of hands reading a braille book.Join us for another wonderful World Braille Month for January 2024. This year we are celebrating artists who use braille to create! We are gathering culture makers to discuss how braille shapes their craft and creativity.

We will also be offering another year for Braille Boost activities for educators and braille learners with new activities and resources. Watch this page in the coming weeks and look for social media and newsletter announcements from our partners at Accessible Libraries, AEBC, AERO, BLC, CCB, CELA, CNIB Foundation, NNELS, and PRCVI. Plan to join us!

Forest of Reading books are here

The book As Long As the Lemon Trees Grow by Zoulfa Katouh rests on a table with lemons and leaves to the left.We're delighted to have added the Forest of Reading 2024 titles to our collection! The Forest helps celebrate Canadian books, publishers, authors and illustrators and each year thousands of young people take part in this wonderful readers' choice program. Voting opens in the spring so now is a perfect time to get reading!

Find all the available accessible titles, listed by each prize, on our dedicated Forest of Reading page.

Webinars for you

We host a series of webinars to help users access CELA services, to stay up to date on new technologies and to learn more about accessible reading.

On the Webinars for you page, you will find upcoming webinars, including CELA’s collection for young readers with print disabilities. On that same page you will find links to other CELA video resources available on our YouTube channel.

Navigating the CELA website for mouse users

This webinar will provide participants with a comprehensive guided tour of the CELA webpage by using a computer mouse. Through a live, described demonstration, participants will learn helpful tips and strategies regardless of whether they are beginners, or advanced users of the website.

The demonstration will show: 

  • How to log in and view your book requests, history and other patron functions of your library service.
  • How to conduct a simple and advanced search, refine the search results, and then how to get a title from that search.
  • How to browse the collection using links such as New titles, Recommended reading, Top 5 picks and Awards.
  • Set search preferences and much more.

Select the link below to register for this webinar:

Tuesday, Dec 5 1:00-2:00pm EST

Featured title for adults: Class: A Memoir by Stephanie Land

Book cover of Class by Stephanie Land.A Good Morning America Book Club Pick "Raw and inspiring." — People "Land is not just exploring her own story, but also the larger implications of what it means to fall between the cracks of American capitalism." — The New York Times.

From the New York Times bestselling author who inspired the hit Netflix series about a struggling mother barely making ends meet as a housecleaner—a gripping memoir about college, motherhood, poverty, and life after Maid. When Stephanie Land set out to write her memoir Maid, she never could have imagined what was to come. Handpicked by President Barack Obama as one of the best books of 2019, it was called "an eye-opening journey into the lives of the working poor" ( People ). Later it was adapted into the hit Netflix series Maid, which was viewed by 67 million households and was Netflix's fourth most-watched show in 2021, garnering three Primetime Emmy Award nominations. Stephanie's escape out of poverty and abuse in search of a better life inspired millions. Maid was a story about a housecleaner, but it was also a story about a woman with a dream.

In Class, Land takes us with her as she finishes college and pursues her writing career. Facing barriers at every turn including a byzantine loan system, not having enough money for food, navigating the judgments of professors and fellow students who didn't understand the demands of attending college while under the poverty line—Land finds a way to survive once again, finally graduating in her mid-thirties. Class paints an intimate and heartbreaking portrait of motherhood as it converges and often conflicts with personal desire and professional ambition. Who has the right to create art? Who has the right to go to college? And what kind of work is valued in our culture? In clear, candid, and moving prose, Class grapples with these questions, offering a searing indictment of America's educational system and an inspiring testimony of a mother's triumph against all odds.

Read Class: A Memoir by Stephanie Land

Top five books

  1. Cover of the book The Exchange by John Grisham.The Whispers: A Novel by Ashley Audrain, Suspense and thrillers,
  2. Reykjavík: A Crime Story by Ragnar Jónasson, Mysteries and crime stories
  3. Pageboy: A Memoir by Elliot Page, Biography
  4. Nineteen Steps: A Novel by Millie Bobby Brown, Family stories
  5. The Exchange: After The Firm (The Firm #2) by John Grisham, Suspense and thrillers

Featured title for children: Hidden on the High Wire by Kathy Kacer

Cover of the book Hidden on the High Wire by Kathy Kacer.Irene grew up traveling around Germany with her family's circus, surrounded by her loved ones and thrilling the crowds with her performance on the high wire...until one day, the audience boos. The Lorch family is Jewish, and the increasing power of Adolf Hitler's Nazis has put them all in grave danger. When the circus is forced to shut down and Irene's father is taken away, Irene and her mother must go into hiding with another circus.

Every day is a frightening new kind of balancing act, caught between the desire to perform and the need to hide—even in plain sight.

Read Hidden on the High Wire: Holocaust Remembrance Book for Young Readers by Kathy Kacer

Top five for kids

  1. Cover of the book Charlie and the Chocolate Factory by Roald Dahl.Charlie and the Chocolate Factory by Roald Dahl, Fantasy
  2. The Barren Grounds (The Misewa Saga #book 1) by David A. Robertson, Fantasy
  3. Killer Whale Vs. Great White Shark (Who Would Win?) by Jerry Pallotta, Animals and wildlife
  4. Who Would Win?: Extreme Animal Rumble (Who Would Win?) by Jerry Pallotta, Animals and wildlife
  5. Dino and Pablo's Prehistoric Games (Wordless Graphic Novels) by Loïc Dauvillier, Animal stories

Top five for teens

  1. The Hunger Games (Hunger Games #1) by SuzaCover of the book One of Us is Lying by Karen M. McManus.nne Collins, Science fiction
  2. One of Us Is Lying by Karen M. McManus, Mysteries and crime stories
  3. Light a Single Candle by Beverly Butler, Blind and visually impaired fiction
  4. The Book Thief by Markus Zusak, Historical fiction
  5. The Rule of Three by Eric Walters, Adventure stories

 

Stay connected!

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