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Origami Wednesday!

9:00am - 5:00pm
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From the Blog

2023 is a big year for the Van Etten Library. Since 1923, Van Etten residents have been receiving library services, starting with a simple book station in a neighboring town, to the current location on Gee Street.

Staff Recommendations

Colorful abstract design of planets with title & author

Orbital: A Novel

WINNER OF THE BOOKER PRIZE 2024 • A NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER

Winner of the 2024 Hawthornden Prize 
Shortlisted for the 2024 Orwell Prize for Political Fiction
Shortlisted for the 2024 Ursula K. Le Guin Prize for Fiction

A singular new novel from Betty Trask Prize-winner Samantha Harvey, Orbital is an eloquent meditation on space and life on our planet through the eyes of six astronauts circling the earth in 24 hours

"Ravishingly beautiful." — Joshua Ferris, New York Times

A slender novel of epic power and the winner of the Booker Prize 2024, Orbital deftly snapshots one day in the lives of six women and men traveling through space. Selected for one of the last space station missions of its kind before the program is dismantled, these astronauts and cosmonauts—from America, Russia, Italy, Britain, and Japan—have left their lives behind to travel at a speed of over seventeen thousand miles an hour as the earth reels below. We glimpse moments of their earthly lives through brief communications with family, their photos and talismans; we watch them whip up dehydrated meals, float in gravity-free sleep, and exercise in regimented routines to prevent atrophying muscles; we witness them form bonds that will stand between them and utter solitude. Most of all, we are with them as they behold and record their silent blue planet. Their experiences of sixteen sunrises and sunsets and the bright, blinking constellations of the galaxy are at once breathtakingly awesome and surprisingly intimate.

Profound and contemplative, Orbital is a moving elegy to our environment and planet.

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Of Time and Turtles

A NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER * NATIONAL BESTSELLER * AMAZON EDITOR'S PICK and BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR * INDIE BESTSELLER * A SMITHSONIAN MAGAZINE'S BEST SCIENCE BOOK OF THE YEAR * THE WASHINGTON POST'S BEST NONFICTION OF THE YEAR PICK * A NEW SCIENTIST BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR *THE PERFECT GIFT FOR NATURE LOVERS * INCLUDES GORGEOUS ARTWORK *

"Montgomery's heart-tugging conversations with teammates and her commitment to helping an octogenarian named Fire Chief reveal turtles to be perfect conduits for meditations on aging, disability and chosen family." --Scientific American

National Book Award finalist for The Soul of an Octopus and New York Times bestseller Sy Montgomery turns her journalistic curiosity to the wonder and wisdom of our long-lived cohabitants--turtles--and through their stories of hope and rescue, reveals to us astonishing new perspectives on time and healing. For fans of The Comfort of Crows: A Backyard Year and An Immense World.

When acclaimed naturalist Sy Montgomery and wildlife artist Matt Patterson arrive at Turtle Rescue League, they are greeted by hundreds of turtles recovering from injury and illness. Endangered by cars and highways, pollution and poachers, these turtles--with wounds so severe that even veterinarians would have dismissed them as fatal--are given a second chance at life. The League's founders, Natasha and Alexxia, live by one motto: Never give up on a turtle.

But why turtles? What is it about them that inspires such devotion? Ancient and unhurried, long-lived and majestic, their lineage stretches back to the time of the dinosaurs. Some live to two hundred years, or longer. Others spend months buried under cold winter water. Montgomery turns to these little understood yet endlessly surprising creatures to probe the eternal question: How can we make peace with our time?

In pursuit of the answer, Sy and Matt immerse themselves in the delicate work of protecting turtle nests, incubating eggs, rescuing sea turtles, and releasing hatchlings to their homes in the wild. We follow the snapping turtle Fire Chief on his astonishing journey as he battles against injuries incurred by a truck.

Hopeful and optimistic, Of Time and Turtles is an antidote to the instability of our frenzied world. Elegantly blending science, memoir, and philosophy, and drawing on cultures from across the globe, this compassionate portrait of injured turtles and their determined rescuers invites us all to slow down and slip into turtle time.

  • Perfect gift for nature lovers.
  • Includes a signature of photos plus stunning, photo-realistic full color paintings and black-and-white chapter opener art by wildlife artist Matt Patterson.
  • Read more books by Sy Montgomery such as How to Be a Good Creature and The Soul of an Octopus.
  • Don't miss The Book of Turtles for children.
Title & author appear on top of an imaginary Eden.

The End of Eden

New Yorker Best Book of the Year

“Exquisite.”-DAVID WALLACE-WELLS “At once an elegy and an exhortation.”-ELIZABETH KOLBERT “A book that goes deeper than any before into the meaning of the climate breakdown for all the rest of creation.”-BILL McKIBBEN “Celebratory and heartbreaking.”-DAVID GEORGE HASKELL

A revelatory exploration of climate change from the perspective of wild species and natural ecosystems--an homage to the miraculous, vibrant entity that is life on Earth. 

The stories we usually tell ourselves about climate change tend to focus on the damage inflicted on human societies by big storms, severe droughts, and rising sea levels. But the most powerful impacts are being and will be felt by the natural world and its myriad species, which are already in the midst of the sixth great extinction. Rising temperatures are fracturing ecosystems that took millions of years to evolve, disrupting the life forms they sustain--and in many cases driving them towards extinction. The natural Eden that humanity inherited is quickly slipping away.

Although we can never really know what a creature thinks or feels, The End of Eden invites the reader to meet wild species on their own terms in a range of ecosystems that span the globe. Combining classic natural history, firsthand reportage, and insights from cutting-edge research, Adam Welz brings us close to creatures like moose in northern Maine, parrots in Puerto Rico, cheetahs in Namibia, and rare fish in Australia as they struggle to survive. The stories are intimate yet expansive and always dramatic.

An exquisitely written and deeply researched exploration of wild species reacting to climate breakdown, The End of Eden offers a radical new kind of environmental journalism that connects humans to nature in a more empathetic way than ever before and galvanizes us to act in defense of the natural world before it's too late.

A Choice Outstanding Academic Title of the Year