CT Library for Accessible Books Newsletters
Current Newsletter: July and August 2025
CT LAB News
CT LAB Book Club
The next CT LAB book club will meet virtually on Wednesday July 23, 2025, from 11:00 a.m. to 12:00 p.m. The title we will be reading is How to Read a Book: a Novel by Monica Wood. This title is available as a Talking Book cartridge and from BARD as DB 121701. A summary of the book follows.
Violet Powell, a twenty-two-year-old from rural Abbott Falls, Maine, is being released from prison after serving twenty-two months for a drunk-driving crash that killed a local kindergarten teacher. Harriet Larson, a retired English teacher who runs the prison book club, is facing the unsettling prospect of an empty nest. Frank Daigle, a retired machinist, hasn't yet come to grips with the complications of his marriage to the woman Violet killed. When the three encounter each other one morning in a bookstore in Portland-Violet to buy the novel she was reading in the prison book club before her release, Harriet to choose the next title for the women who remain, and Frank to dispatch his duties as the store handyman-their lives begin to intersect in transformative ways. How to Read a Book is an unsparingly honest and profoundly hopeful story about letting go of guilt, seizing second chances, and the power of books to change our lives. With the heart, wit, grace, and depth of understanding that has characterized her work, Monica Wood illuminates the decisions that define a life and the kindnesses that make life worth living.
Please register for the book club by calling Paula McLean at (860) 704-2216 or (800) 842-4516. Participants will receive the Zoom meeting link or dial in phone number approximately one week before the book club meeting.
Connecticut Talking Books Now Available
Read below for a selection of locally produced Talking Books now available on BARD, the Braille and Audio Reading Download service from the National Library Service for the Blind and Print Disabled (NLS). These books can also be sent to patrons on a Talking Book cartridge. Connecticut Talking Books are recorded by volunteers at the studios of Talking Books CT/CVSBH.
DBC 06255. Assignment Rescue: an Autobiography
Written by Varian Fry. Marseilles, France. August 1940. The Gestapo's blacklist was thousands of names long. How many people could he get out before Hitler sealed the frontiers? Varian Fry didn't know any more about being an undercover agent than what he'd seen in the movies. But, he was the one man who could get into Vichy France, where thousands of people had fled Hitler's Germany. Unless he could get them out, they'd be trapped-turned back to the concentration camps and death camps. An exciting, true story of World War II, Varian Fry describes the methods he used to get thousands of hunted men and women to safety. Nonfiction. World History.
DBC 28327. Hoop Tales: UConn Huskies Women’s Basketball.
Written by Terese Karmel. Karmel, the UCONN women's basketball beat writer from the Meriden Record-Journal for more than twenty years shares her favorite memories of this beloved team. Together you'll relive the highs and lows and become reacquainted with some of the team's all-time greatest heroes and legends including Kerry Bascom, Rebecca Lobo, Diana Taurassi, and Geno Auriemma. Nonfiction. Sports.
DBC 28049. The Heiress of Water: a Novel
Written by Sandra Rodriguez Barron. When young Monica's mother dies in an accident at sea, she must leave the tropical paradise in El Salvador that was her home. Grieving, Monica and her American father move to Connecticut vowing not to look back. But years later when an intriguing stranger enters Monica's life bearing an unusual request, Monica is propelled back to her past. Retracing the shadowy last days of her mother, a marine scientist whose research is being corrupted, Monica's discoveries will shatter the family's truce. Fiction.
DBC 06322. Summer of the Dragon
Written by Elizabeth Peters. A good salary and an all-expenses-paid summer spent at a sprawling Arizona ranch is too good a deal for fledgling anthropologist D.J. Abbott to turn down. What does it matter that her rich new employer/benefactor, Hank Hunnicutt, is a certified oddball who is presently funding all manner of off-beat projects, from alien conspiracy studies to a hunt for dragon bones? There's even talk of treasure buried in the nearby mountains, but D.J. isn't going to allow loose speculation -- or the considerable charms of handsome professional treasure hunter Jesse Franklin -- to sidetrack her. Until Hunnicutt suffers a mysterious accident and then vanishes. On a high desert search for the missing millionaire, D.J. is learning things that may not be healthy for her to know. The game someone is playing goes far beyond the rational universe -- and it could leave D.J. legitimately dead. Fiction. Adventure, Mystery, and Romance.
DBC 28052. Eddie’s Bastard
Written by William Kowalski. With the recent death of his only son, Eddie, Grandpa Mann believes he is the last surviving member of a once-great family, until the morning he finds an abandoned baby in a basket on his doorstep with a note identifying the occupant as "Eddie's Bastard". What follows is the bittersweet story of an old man who raises his grandson steeping him in a complex heritage. Fiction. Historical Fiction.
National Library Service for the Blind and Print Disabled (NLS) Updates
BARD 2 Offers New Features for Patrons
BARD, the NLS Braille and Audio Reading Download website, now offers expanded functionality and will serve as a gateway for new services in the future.
If you use BARD on the web, you will have access to BARD 2 in late July. Features of the new BARD website include:
- Reorganization of the BARD Wish List, Reading History, Subscriptions, and Account Settings under one menu.
- New sorting capabilities of book lists.Book lists can be refined by format, language, and subject.
- An updated search engine that will make it easier to find books and deliver search results faster.
- Advanced search functionality.
Access to the new BARD website requires a change in login procedures. CT LAB will contact BARD web users and provide instructions for login procedures.
Please contact CT LAB if you have questions, would like to register for BARD, need assistance, or would like to tell us about your experience with BARD 2. To contact CT LAB, please call (860) 704-2220 or (800) 842-4516.
Upcoming NLS Programs
Get to Know the Many Faces of BARD
NLS staff members offer tips, answer questions, and demonstrate new features of BARD, the BARD Mobile app, and BARD Express each month during The Many Faces of BARD. This online event is open to all patrons and is held at 7 p.m. eastern time on the second Thursday of every month.
Get program details, login information, and recordings of previous programs at the Many Faces of BARD web page.
That All May eRead Program
NLS presents a monthly program called That All May eRead on Zoom. This program, scheduled monthly for the last Tuesday night of each month, focuses on using the NLS Braille eReaders. Each session begins with a brief demonstration of a feature or use case. The rest of the hour is spent answering patron questions about any aspect of the Zoomax or HumanWare Braille eReaders. Get program details and access recordings of previous programs at the That All May eRead web page.
Connect with CT LAB
Hours of Operation: Monday through Friday, 9:00 AM to 3:00 PM
Phone: 860-704-2220 or 800-842-4516 (toll free in state only)
Email: csl.AccessibleBooks@ct.gov
Mailing Address: 786 South Main St., Middletown, CT 06457
Upcoming CT LAB Holiday Closings
July 4, 2025 – Independence Day
September 1, 2025 – Labor Day
October 13, 2025 – Columbus Day
November 11, 2025 – Veterans Day
