Citrus Libraries Offers Award-Winning “Wild New World: Epic Story of Animals and People in America” during Worldwide Digital Book Club
Sometimes the truth creates the most fascinating tale. Residents of Citrus County can experience this firsthand by reading an award-winning true story about history, nature and science during Big Library Read, the world’s largest digital book club. From May 9-23, Dan Flores’s 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 or by visiting libbyapp.com/library/citrus. Library card holders can join thousands of others around the globe in reading the digital book 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.
This Big Library Read novel is available in more than 22,000 libraries around the world including Citrus Libraries and approximately 90 percent of public libraries in North America. During the program, readers have the opportunity to participate in engaging online discussions about the title. The program is facilitated by OverDrive, the leading digital reading platform for popular ebooks, audiobooks and magazines and creator of the Libby app.
“The popularity of digital materials has continued to grow year after year,” said Citrus Libraries Acquisitions Manager Karen Fellows. “Digital checkouts through Libby have increased by more than 50% compared to this time in 2022, which is a huge indicator that this trend isn’t going to change anytime soon. As a result of the growing demand for digital materials we are continuing to purchase additional titles for patrons to access 24/7 through the Libby app.”
Wild New World begins in 1908, near Folsom, New Mexico, where a cowboy discovered 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.
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.
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. Readers can join an online discussion about the book at https://biglibraryread.com/join-the-discussion/.
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.
To join the discussion, learn about past Big Library Read titles and download Libby, visit biglibraryread.com. You can also stay up-to-date on all of the happenings at Citrus Libraries by following us @citruslibraries on Facebook and Instagram.
