BARD mobile app for Android phones
BARD, which stands for Braille and Audio Reading Download, now can be loaded onto your Android device with an application available at the Google Play store. You must have a BARD account and be running Android OS 4.1 or later. The user guide is available from the bookshelf of the app. You can also find help screens in the app by using either the Context menu or the More Options button and then selecting Help. How-to series videos are also available from the Library of Congress channel on YouTube. BARD currently has many books available that have been recorded by the Minnesota Radio Talking Book Network.
Weekend Program Books
Your Personal World (Saturday at 1 p.m.) is airing Goddesses Never Age, by Christiane Northrup, M.D.; For the Younger Set (Sunday at 11 a.m.) is airing Dodger, by Terry Pratchett; Poetic Reflections (Sunday at noon) is airing Blood Lyrics, by Katie Ford, and Load Poems Like Guns, translated by Farzana Marie; The U.S. and Us (Sunday at 4 p.m.) is airing Northern Slave, Black Dakota, by Walt Bachman.
Books Available Through Faribault
Books broadcast on the Minnesota Radio Talking Book Network are available through the Minnesota Braille and Talking Book Library in Faribault, MN. Their phone is 1-800-722-0550 and hours are 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. Monday through Friday. Their catalog is also online, and you can access it by going to the main website, www.mnbtbl.org, and then clicking on the link Search the Library Catalog. If you live outside of Minnesota, you may obtain copies of our books via an inter-library loan by contacting your own state’s Network Library for the National Library Service.
Listen to the Minnesota Radio Talking Book, either live or archived programs from the last week, on the Internet at www.mnssb.org/rtb. Call the staff at the Radio for your password to the site.
Audio information about the daily book listings is also on NFB Newsline. Register for NFB Newsline by calling 651-539-1424.
Chautauqua Tuesday, Tuesday – Saturday 4 a.m
The Body Keeps the Score, Nonfiction by Bessel Van der Kolk, M.D., 2014. 21 Br. Began September 2. Trauma is a fact of life, whether it is from warfare, molestation, living with alcoholics, or physical violence. But those experiences leave traces on minds, emotions, and even on biology. Read by Yelva Lynfield.
Past is Prologue, Monday – Friday 9 a.m
Empire’s Crossroads, Nonfiction by Carrie Gibson, 2014. 18 Br. Began August 26. Ever since Columbus stepped ashore, the Caribbean has been a stage for fantasies and competition between world powers. The story of the Caribbean is not simply the story of slaves and masters, but also fortune seekers, tourists, scientists, and pirates. Read by Chris Colestock.
50 Children, Nonfiction by Steven Pressman, 2014. 8 Br. Begins September 21. In early 1939, bucking America’s rigid immigration laws and risking their own safety, Gilbert Kraus and his wife, Eleanor, traveled to Nazi-controlled Vienna and Berlin to save fifty Jewish children. Read by June Prange
Bookworm, Monday – Friday 11 a.m.
A Spool of Blue Thread, Fiction by Anne Tyler, 2015. 13 Br. Began September 9. The Whitshank family is one that radiates togetherness. But like all families, the stories they tell themselves reveal only part of the picture. In addition to tender moments, laughter, and celebrations, there are jealousies, disappointments, and secrets. Read by Judy Woodward.
Gwendolen, Fiction by Diana Souhami, 2015. 10 Br. Begins September 28. Gwendolen, an exceptionally beautiful, young, upper-class Englishwoman, is gambling boldly at a German resort when she learns from her mother that her family’s fortune has been lost. When a wealthy aristocrat proposes marriage, she accepts, despite an alarming secret in his past. Read by Joan Sanaker.
The Writer’s Voice, Monday, Monday – Friday 2 p.m.
American Warlord, Nonfiction by Johnny Dwyer, 2015. 17 Br. Began September 8. Chucky Taylor grew up as an average American kid with friends, a girlfriend, and a few brushes with the law. But at age fifteen, he flew to Liberia to meet his father Charles Taylor, the warlord and future president of Liberia. There he became commander of the infamous Anti-Terrorist Unit, a.k.a. “Demon Forces” and all traces of morality vanished. Read by Nancy Bader.
Choice Reading, Monday, Monday – Friday 4 p.m.
The Second Sister, Fiction by Marie Bostwick, 2015. 14 Br. Began September 1. Lucy Toomey’s life as a politico is just paying off when her sister dies. As part of her sister’s will, Lucy needs to live in her sister’s cottage in Wisconsin, and as she does that, she comes to appreciate her sister as she had not before. Read by Connie Jamison.
Galápagos Regained, Fiction by James Morrow, 2015. 23 Br. Begins September 21. Chloe Bathurst uses her connection to Charles Darwin to enter a contest disproving God’s existence. Before she knows it, her ambitions send her off on a wild adventure bound for the Galápagos archipelago. Read by Arlan Dohrenburg.
PM Report, Monday – Friday 8 p.m.
Our Lost Constitution, Nonfiction by Mike Lee, 2015. 8 Br. Began September 2. Senator Mike Lee tells the dramatic stories behind key parts of the Consitution. He shows how every abuse of federal power today is rooted in the neglect of America’s founding document. Read by Art Nyhus.
Too Big to Jail, Nonfiction by Brandon L. Garrett, 2015. 15 Br. Begins September 14. Federal prosecutors benefit from statutes that allow entire firms to be held liable for a crime by a single employee. But when prosecutors target the Goliaths of the corporate world, they find themselves at a huge disadvantage. Read by Dan Kuechenmeister.
Night Journey, Monday – Friday 9 p.m.
The Rest Is Silence, Fiction by James R. Benn, 2014. 13 Br. Begins September 14. When a corpse washes up on England’s southern coast, Billy Boyle is assigned to investigate. And then a military tragedy occurs with not one corpse, but hundreds. V,L – Read by Tom Price.
Off the Shelf, Monday – Friday 10 p.m.
Flying Shoes, Fiction by Sarah Waters, 2014. 12 Br. Begins September 14. Mary Byrd Thornton is called back to Virginia because of a reporter’s call, thirty years after the crime. But she’s not surprised a reporter couldn’t resist the story; it was so lurid. L – Read by John Marsicano.
The Search for Heinrich Schlögel, Fiction by Naomi Klein, 2014. 9 Br. Begins September 30. Heinrich Schlögel sets out on a two-week hike into the isolated interior of Baffin Island. When he returns from his hike, he discovers that, though he has not aged, thirty years have passed. Read by Julie Bolton.
Potpourri, Monday – Friday 11 p.m.
Gumption, Nonfiction by Nick Offerman, 2015. 14 Br. Began September 8. As a reasonably flawed human being, Offerman relies upon the inspiration of great Americans to keep him on the straight and narrow. He says that gumption is the trait that all of us must foster if we ever hope to attain greatness. Read by Don Gerlach.
Skull in the Ashes, Nonfiction by Peter Kaufman, 2013. 10 Br. Begins September 28. In February, 1897, a general store in Walford, Iowa, burned down. The next morning, a charred corpse was discovered. Shop owner Frank Novak was seeking to cash in on life insurance policies, but instead, sparked a change in detective work that changed his and the lives of two others. Read by Yelva Lynfield.
Good Night Owl, Monday – Friday midnight
Tesla, Fiction by Vladimir Pištalo, 2015. 17 Br. Began August 31. Nikola Tesla was one of the twentieth century’s most prodigious and colorful inventors. His rise and fall reveal the many dimensions of a visionary whose influence is still felt today. L – Read by Bob Malos.
The Truth about the Harry Quebert Affair, Fiction by Joel Dicker, 2014. 23 Br. Begins September 23. In 1975, fifteen-year-old Nola Kellergan disappeared. Thirty three years later, young novelist Marcus Goldman is visiting his mentor, Harry Quebert, just in time to see him implicated in the cold-case murder of Nora. As national media convicts Harry, Marcus launches his own investigation. L – Read by Jack Rossmann.
After Midnight, Tuesday – Saturday 1 a.m.
A Sudden Light, Fiction by Garth Stein, 2014. 14 Br. Began September 3. Trevor’s bankrupt parents have begun a trial separation and Trevor’s father has brought him to the legendary family mansion with one goal: to join forces with his sister and dispatch their grandfather to a nursing home so they can sell the house and property for development. But as Trevor explores the house’s secret stairways and hidden rooms, he finds a spirit lingering in Riddell House whose agenda is at odds with the family plan. L – Read by Don Lee.
The Wonders, Fiction by Paddy O’Reilly, 2015. 8 Br. Begins September 23. Leon, Kathryn, and Christos are the Wonders, three extraordinary people whose medical treatments have tested the limits of the human body. When they are brought together by a canny entrepreneur, their glamorous, genre-defying circus act becomes a global sensation. But what makes them objects of fascination also places them in danger. L -Read by Greg Olson.
Abbreviations: V – violence, L – offensive language, S – sexual situations
