News Archives - Wellesley Free Library

Library Phased Reopening Plan

Welcome back to the Library! Our phased reopening plan for the Wellesley Free Library is carefully managed to prioritize the safety and well-being of staff and patrons. Our goal is to bring back the things you love while ensuring the health of our community....

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2019 WFL Report to the Community Now Available

Take a peek at the year in review: Wellesley Free Library Annual Report to the Community 2019

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Fells Branch Library Now Open!

The renovation of Wellesley’s Fells Branch Library is complete! Fells Branch is located at 308 Weston Road. Regular open hours for Fells Branch are Tuesday through Saturday from 10 AM – 5 PM. Click here for information about Fells Branch story-times and learning...

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Lincoln’s Lieutenants

Lincoln’s Lieutenants: The High Command of the Army of the Potomac by Stephen W. Sears From the best-selling author of Gettysburg, a multilayered group biography of the commanders who led the Army of the Potomac. The high command of the Army of the Potomac...

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MacArthur’s Spies

MacArthur’s Spies: The Soldier, the Singer, and the Spymaster Who Defied the Japanese in World War II by Peter Eisner On January 2, 1942, Japanese troops marched into Manila unopposed by U.S. forces. Manila was a strategic port, a romantic American outpost and a...

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New Science Books for May

May 9th Aliens: Prominent Scientists on the Search for Extraterrestrial Life by Jim Al-Khalili, (Author, Editor) In these lively and fascinating essays, scientists from around the world weigh in on the latest advances in the search for intelligent life in the universe and discuss...

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New Science Fiction: April

April 4th 1636: Mission to the Mughals by Eric Flint, & Griffin Barber The United States of Europe, the new nation formed by an alliance between the Swedish king Gustavus Adolphus and the West Virginians hurled back in time by a cosmic accident,...

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The Collapsing Empire

The Collapsing Empire by John Scalzi Our universe is ruled by physics. Faster than light travel is impossible, until the discovery of The Flow, an extra-dimensional field available at certain points in space-time, which can take us to other planets around other stars. Riding...

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The World Remade

The World Remade: America in World War I by G. J.Meyer An indispensable, sharply drawn account of America’s pivotal-and still controversial-intervention in World War I, enlivened by fresh insights into the key issues, events, and personalities of the period. In his previous book A...

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Exoplanets

Exoplanets: Asking the Right Questions in Our Strange New Universe by Michael E. Summers, & James Trefil The past few years have seen an incredible explosion in our knowledge of the universe. Since its 2009 launch, the Kepler satellite has discovered more than two...

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The Raven’s Table: Viking Stories

The Raven’s Table: Viking Stories by Christine Morgan The wolf’s wind is howling, stalking like death itself. The carrion-crows, avaricious and impatient, circling the battle-ground, the Raven’s Table. Listen… The furious clangor of battle. The harrowing singing of steel. The desperate cries of wounded...

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Agent 110

Agent 110: An American Spymaster and the German Resistance in WWII by Scot Miller This is the secret and suspenseful account of how OSS spymaster Allen Dulles led a network of Germans conspiring to assassinate Hitler and negotiate surrender to bring about the end...

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We March Against England

We March Against England: Operation Sealion and German Air-Sea Actions Against Great Britain, 1940-41 by Robert Forczyk In June, 1940, Nazi Germany was master of continental Europe. Great Britain stood alone and the all-conquering German armed forces were poised to cross the English Channel and...

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Fit for the Presidency?

Fit for the Presidency?: Winners, Losers, What-Ifs, and Also-Rans by Seymour Morris Jr. Every four years Americans embark on the ultimate carnival, the Super Bowl of democracy: a presidential election campaign filled with endless speeches, debates, handshakes, and passion. But what about the candidates...

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Anne L. Reynolds, Former WFL Director

Anne L. Reynolds, beloved former director of the Wellesley Free Library, died on January 20th, 2017 in Portsmouth, NH. Former Head of Technical Services at the library, Anne brought a whole-systems vision to the library: its strengths, its challenges, and its vibrant possibilities. She...

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We are Participating in National Library Survey from the Pew Research Center

The Wellesley Free Library is participating in a national library survey from the Pew Research Center. We would love you to participate. Please click here to take the survey.

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From Stieg Larrson to Henning Mankell

You remember “The Girl Who…” series. You know, first she had a dragon tattoo, then she played with fire, and finally kicked the hornet’s nest. It was a great series, if a tad on the violent side. When I read the books, I knew...

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Pandora’s Star

Pandora’s Star by Peter F. Hamilton I just finished Peter F. Hamilton’s latest book A night without stars: a novel of the Commonwealth and I must admit he is one of my favorite authors. The thing is, there is so much background information provided...

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The Fleet at Flood Tide

The Fleet at Flood Tide: America at Total War in the Pacific, 1944-1945 by James D. Hornfischer The extraordinary story of the World War II air, land, and sea campaign that brought the U.S. Navy to the apex of its strength and marked the...

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Iron Dawn

Iron Dawn: The Monitor, the Merrimack, and the Civil War Sea Battle That Changed History by Richard Snow The thrilling story of the naval battle that not only changed the Civil War but the future of all sea power. The Confederacy, with no fleet...

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Read the November Edition of The Wellesley Reader

November Edition

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Waiting for Contact

Waiting for Contact: The Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence by Lawrence Squeri Imagine a network of extraterrestrials in radio contact with each other across the universe, superior beings who hail from advanced civilizations quadrillions of miles away, just waiting for Earth to tune in. Some...

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God’s Armies

God’s Armies: Crusade and Jihad: Origins, History, Aftermath by Malcolm Lambert Crusade and jihad are often reckoned to have represented two sides of the same coin: each resonated on the opposing sides in the holy wars of the Middle Ages and each has been...

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Meet the Executive Director Finalists

Meet the Executive Director Finalists Public Reception October 20th, 2016 5:30 PM to 7:00 PM Warren Building, Children’s Room 90 Washington Street The two finalists for the position of Executive Director will be available to meet the public and answer questions during a moderated...

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The General vs. the President

The General vs. the President: MacArthur and Truman at the Brink of Nuclear War by H. W. Brands From master storyteller and historian H. W. Brands comes the riveting story of how President Harry Truman and General Douglas MacArthur squared off to decide America’s...

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American Heiress

American Heiress: The Wild Saga of the Kidnapping, Crimes, and Trial of Patty Hearst by Jeffrey Toobin From “New Yorker” staff writer and bestselling author of “The Nine “and “The Run of His Life: The People v. O. J. Simpson,” the definitive account of...

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October 9-15 is Teen Read Week!

Created in 1998, Teen Read Week is a Young Adult Library Services Association (YALSA) initiative to encourage reading and library usage among teens. Teen Read Week is held annually in October, and this year we have a multi-lingual “Read for Fun!” theme designed to...

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Hero of the Empire

Hero of the Empire: The Boer War, a Daring Escape, and the Making of Winston Churchill by Candice Millard From New York Times bestselling author of Destiny of the Republic and The River of Doubt, a thrilling narrative of Winston Churchill’s extraordinary and little-known...

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American Revolutions

American Revolutions: A Continental History, 1750-1804 by Alan Taylor The American Revolution is often portrayed as a high-minded, orderly event whose capstone, the Constitution, provided the ideal framework for a democratic, prosperous nation. Alan Taylor, two-time winner of the Pulitzer Prize, gives us a...

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Defying the Nazis

Defying the Nazis: the Sharps’ War by Artemis Joukowsky; with a foreword by Ken Burns. The official companion to the Ken Burns film premiering September 20, 2016, on PBS tells the little-known story of the Sharps, an otherwise ordinary couple whose faith and commitment...

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Robopocalypse

The Robots are coming . . . Robopocalypse by Daniel H. Wilson They are in your house. They are in your car. They are in the skies. Now they’re coming for you. In the near future, at a moment no one will notice, all...

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Robot Uprisings

The Robots are coming . . . Robot Uprisings by Daniel H. Wilson & John Joseph Adams; (Editors) Humans beware. As the robotic revolution continues to creep into our lives, it brings with it an impending sense of doom. What horrifying scenarios might unfold...

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Follow us on Snapchat!

The Wellesley Free Library is now on Snapchat! Follow us by searching “wellesleylib.” We’ll be using the Snapchat platform to post live updates about our new NAO robots, library news and events, and anything fun happening at the library. Don’t have a Snapchat? Sign...

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Bienvenido! Herzlich Wilkommen! ようこそ!

“Это отличная книга!” “這是一個偉大的書!” “Bu harika bir kitap!” “What a great book!” Our robots love to read, but did you know they can speak 19 different languages? They make extensive use of our collection of foreign books to make sure they practice, practice, practice....

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Accelerando

The Robots are coming . . . Accelerando by Charles Stross Accelerando presents a startling vision of humanity’s inability to cope with rapid technological advancement. Expanding on his award-winning short story cycle from Asimov’s Science Fiction magazine, the Hugo Award-winning Stross introduces us...

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Add Some Adventure to Your Summer!

Bored of sitting inside in front of the fan? Add some adventure to your summer by visiting our film display in the Media Room! Stocked with new and classic action and adventure films, these movies are sure to transport you out of the heat...

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Robots catch up with Summer Reading!

The robots have been hard at work learning dances, songs, even yoga routines! It’s nice to take a break and relax with a good book. Summer reading for this year has just ended – we hope all our young readers made it to our...

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Genesis

The Robots are coming . . . Genesis by Bernard Beckett Like The Hunger Games, The Maze Runner, and Divergent this short novel is set in a dystopian society however, this post-apocalyptic world is packed with suspense and ideas. Anax thinks she knows history....

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We All Scream for Cool Summer Desserts

Stay cool this summer buy visiting our summer desserts display on the second floor. Take home a book about how to make no-churn ice cream, icy smoothies, or your own ice-cold soda. Perfect for the entire family, this collection of cookbooks is sure to...

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Blade Runner

The Robots are coming . . . Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? by Philip K. Dick Philip K. Dick was probably the most brilliant science fiction writer in the world but, he died of a stroke at the age of 53. More than...

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Hot Books for a Steamy Summer

It’s a hot one this year! Whether you’re looking for a suspenseful mystery or a steamy romance to get your mind off the heat, we’ve got you covered. Visit our second floor display to check out our hot picks for the summer. Grab a...

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“Can we come in yet . . . ?”

“Can we come in yet . . . ?” The WFL NAO robots are eager to come in to their new home! As we prepare the library to welcome them, we need your help: they need names! Until September 9 the WFL is holding...

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Descender: Tin Stars

The galaxy is attacked by massive, mysterious robots. Fear sweeps the nine planets and anti-robot fervor leads to the destruction of all robots. Any left lingering are hunted by mercenaries. Years later we meet one robot, a boy designed for human companionship, who wakes...

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I Robot

The Robots are coming . . . I, ROBOT by Isaac Asimov In I, Robot, Asimov chronicles the development of the robot through a series of interlinked stories: from robots gone mad, to mind reading robots, robots with a sense of humor and even...

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Where in Wellesley Are the Robots? The WFL, of course!

The Wellesley Free Library is excited to announce the arrival of two NAO Robots. What, you ask, is an NAO robot? NAO’s are programmable humanoid robots used in STEM education, designed to teach computer coding. Their user-friendly demeanor encourages curiosity and a passion for figuring...

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Take a Hawaii Vacation!

Did you know the average flight from Logan to Honolulu can range from 10 to 22 hours?! Flying all that way can be daunting and too time-consuming. Luckily, we have everything you need to take a trip to Hawaii from the comforts of your...

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August 7th is Sister’s Day

Celebrate your sister – or best friend who might as well be – on August 7th! Our second floor display features some of the best novels and movies about sisters. Watch one of these movies together, or hold your own sister book group for...

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The Windup Girl

The Robots are coming . . . THE WINDUP GIRL by Paolo Bacigalupi Bacigalupi (The Water Knife) presents a grim but beautifully written tale of Bangkok struggling for survival in a post-oil era of rising sea levels and food economy. Capt. Jaidee Rojjanasukchai of...

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U.S. Destinations to Visit This Summer: Check Out a Travel Guide

Going on a road trip or visiting a new corner of the country? Check out a travel guide for the top haunts to make your vacation the best experience it can be! Need ideas for your next adventure? Travel books are a great way...

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We Think Therefore We Are

The Robots are coming . . . WE THINK THEREFORE WE ARE edited by Peter Crowther Fifteen original stories about our fear of and fascination with artificial intelligence. Artificial intelligence has captured the imaginations of writers, readers, and scientists alike. Now some of the...

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Take a Trip Through Space

July 20th Is Space Exploration Day! Want to go to the moon? Take a cruise around Saturn’s rings? Maybe reach the far edge of the universe? Visit our Space Exploration book display on the second floor, and you can! Featuring the best non-fiction books...

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Daemon

The Robots are Coming . . . DAEMON by Daniel Suarez Computer technology expert Daniel Suarez blends haunting high-tech realism with gripping suspense in an authentic, complex thriller. DAEMON IS, a high-tech thriller for the wireless age that explores the unthinkable consequences of a...

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Take Your Best Swing: It’s National Golf Month

Take Your Best Swing! July is National Golf Month and time to enjoy the popular American pastime! Gaining popularity in America via Great Britain in the late 1800s, golf reached its zenith in the U.S. in the Roaring Twenties, with over a thousand golf...

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Browse our Global Eating Display on the Second Floor

Can’t travel this summer? Take a culinary journey around the world with colorful cookbooks from foreign cultures and nations. You don’t have to go far this summer to travel with your taste buds!

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THE MECHANICAL

In order to prepare for our future Robot Overlords, during the next few weeks I will feature books with a Robot or Machine Intelligence theme. – Tyson THE MECHANICAL by Ian Tregillis MY NAME IS JAX. That is the name granted to me by...

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Have you watched a good book lately?

Take a look at our Media Room film display! So many good movies are based on equally great books. Check out the Media Room display this month to see some of our favorites! We’ll be featuring some of the best box office hits that...

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Grill, Baby, Grill!

Take your summer cookout to the next level! Humans have been cooking our food since shortly after the domestication of fire, around 500,000 years ago. But grilling as we know it stems from the 1940s when camping and hiking was popular. After WWII and...

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Uprooted Wins

Uprooted by Naomi Novik Naomi Novik’s Uprooted has won the Locus Award and Nebula Award for best novel. Uprooted is a wonderful story loosely based on a number of fairy tales from Eastern Europe. Naomi is of Polish and Russian descent, and the stories...

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New at the Library: Borrow a Jigsaw Puzzle!

The Wellesley Free Library now has jigsaw puzzles! Located in the Media Room, these 1000 piece puzzles are available to check out, and are sure to promise hours of fun. All puzzles are family friendly, so take one home today! Have a puzzle you’ve...

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And Then All Hell Broke Loose

And Then All Hell Broke Loose: Two Decades in the Middle East by Richard Engel Over two decades Engel has been under fire, blown out of hotel beds, taken hostage. He has been through the Lebanese war, covered the whole shooting match in Iraq,...

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New Young Adult Books

New Young Adult Books The Only Thing Worse than Me is You by Lily Anderson Trixie Watson has two very important goals for senior year: to finally save enough to buy the set of Dr. Who figurines at the local comic books store,...

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True Crime Top 5

True Crime Top 5 True Crime stories are filled with violence, deception, murder, and mystery, perfect for a summer read. The Top 5 True Crime stories in the last year based on library circulation are: #5 In Cold Blood by Truman Capote Powerful account...

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Marvel’s Civil War

Civil War, Illustrated Edition, by Stuart Moore After the U.S. government passes the Superhero Registration Act, legislation designed to keep superheroes in check, the superheroes of the world find themselves divided. The act requires any person in the United States who possesses superpowers...

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Sleeping Giants

Sleeping Giants by Sylvain Neuvel A girl named Rose is riding her new bike near her home in Deadwood, South Dakota, when she falls through the earth. She wakes up at the bottom of a square hole, its walls glowing with intricate carvings....

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Read the Latest Edition of the Wellesley Reader

June Issue

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The Medusa Chronicles

The Medusa Chronicles by Stephen Baxter, Alastair Reynolds A sequel to Sir Arthur C. Clarke’s Nebula Award-winning novella A Meeting with Medusa, this novel continues the thrilling adventure of astronaut Howard Falcon, humanity’s first explorer of Jupiter from two modern science fiction masters. Howard...

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Winter Fortress

The Winter Fortress: The Epic Mission to Sabotage Hitler’s Atomic Bomb by Neal Bascomb From the internationally acclaimed, best-selling author of Hunting Eichmann and The Perfect Mile , an epic adventure and spy story about the greatest act of sabotage in all of World...

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MacArthur at War

MacArthur at War: World War II in the Pacific by Walter R. Borneman In predawn darkness the black telephone rang loudly. The general’s wife lifted the receiver from its cradle on the nightstand in the Manila Hotel penthouse suite’s master bedroom and hesitantly answered...

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Valiant Ambition

Valiant Ambition: George Washington, Benedict Arnold, and the Fate of the American Revolution by Nathaniel Philbrick From the New York Times bestselling author of In The Heart of the Sea and Mayflower comes a surprising account of the middle years of the American Revolution,...

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Mapping the Heavens

MAPPING the HEAVENS: the Radical Scientific Ideas that Reveal the Cosmos by Priyamvada Natarajan This book provides a tour of the “greatest hits” of cosmological discoveries, the ideas that reshaped our universe over the past century.The cosmos, once understood as a stagnant place, filled...

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Game of Crowns

Game of Crowns: Elizabeth, Camilla, Kate, and the Throne by Christopher Andersen The #1 New York Times bestselling author of William and Kate and The Day Diana Died takes a compulsively readable look into the relationships and rivalries of Queen Elizabeth, Camilla Parker Bowles,...

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The Genius of Birds

The Genius of Birds by Jennifer Ackerman Bird brains no longer new research is demonstrating that birds are astonishingly intelligent creatures. In fact, some birds rival primates and even humans in their remarkable forms of intelligence. Like humans, many birds have enormous brains relative...

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1941: Fighting the Shadow War

1941: Fighting the Shadow War: A Divided America in a World at War by Marc Wortman In 1941: Fighting the Shadow War: A Divided America in a World at War , historian Marc Wortman thrillingly explores the interesting history of America’s clandestine involvement in...

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Jungle of Stone

Jungle of Stone: The Extraordinary Journey of John L. Stephens and Frederick Catherwood by William Carlsen In 1839 rumors of extraordinary yet baffling stone ruins buried within the unmapped jungles of Central America reached two of the world’s most intrepid travelers. Seized by the...

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Read the Latest Edition of The Wellesley Reader

Read the May Edition here

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How Old? The Quest to Find the True Age of the Universe

13.8: The Quest to Find the True Age of the Universe and the Theory of Everything by John Gribbin The twentieth century gave us two great theories of physics. The general theory of relativity describes the behavior of very large things, and quantum theory...

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Fluke: The Math and Myth of Coincidence

Fluke: The Math and Myth of Coincidence by Joseph Mazur What is the true nature of chance? This is the question Joseph Mazur examines in his new book. What are the chances? is often the question we ask ourselves when we encounter the strangest...

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The Medici: Power, Money, and Ambition

The Medici: Power, Money, and Ambition in the Italian Renaissance by Paul Strathern This book is not a boring list of names and dates but instead a dazzling history of the modest family that rose to become one of the most powerful in Europe,...

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The Secret War: spies, ciphers, and guerrillas, 1939-1945

The Secret War: spies, ciphers, and guerrillas, 1939-1945 by Max Hastings Examining the espionage and intelligence stories of World War II, on a global basis, bringing together the British, American, German, Russian and Japanese histories. Spies, codes and guerrillas played critical roles in the...

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Oscar movies and their books

Many Oscar winning movies are based on critically acclaimed books with similar or unique titles. Come in and browse our collection. The Revenant: A Novel of Revenge by Michael Punke. The film is based on Punke’s 2002 book set in 1823 and based on...

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Pale Horse: Hunting Terrorists and Commanding Heroes with the 101st Airborne Division

Pale Horse: Hunting Terrorists and Commanding Heroes with the 101st Airborne Division by Jimmy Blackmon Pale Horse is the remarkable never-before-told true story of an army aviation task force during combat in the Afghan War, told by the commanding officer who was there. Set...

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The Cosmic Web: Mysterious Architecture of the Universe

The Cosmic Web: Mysterious Architecture of the Universe by J. Richard Gott III J. Richard Gott, professor of astrophysics at Princeton University, looks at the large overall structure of the Universe. He was among the first cosmologists to propose that the structure of our...

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The Boiling River: Adventure and Discovery in the Amazon

The Boiling River: Adventure and Discovery in the Amazon by Andrés Ruzo In this exciting adventure mixed with amazing scientific study, a young, exuberant explorer and geoscientist journeys deep into the Amazon, where rivers boil and legends come to life. When Andrés Ruzo was...

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Ghost Warriors: Inside Israel’s Undercover War

The Ghost Warriors: Inside Israel’s Undercover War Against Suicide Terrorism by Samuel M. Katz The story of how Israel fought back with an elite force of undercover operatives. The untold story of the Ya’mas, Israel’s special forces undercover team that infiltrated Palestinian terrorist strongholds...

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Great History Books of 2015 (Part 2)

This is a continuation of an earlier post Great History Books of 2015 (Part 1). Went the Day Well?: Witnessing Waterloo by David Crane Went the Day Well? offers a highly original view of Waterloo, grand in scope but meticulous in detail. What...

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Great History Books of 2015 (Part 1)

These books look at the important historical figures, and events, and ordinary people that made the world what it is today. It was not inevitable that history would turn out the way it did. S.P.Q.R. A History of Ancient Rome by Mary Beard Illustrating...

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Be Curious: Great Science Books of 2015

Learn about our world with these books for the general reader. Rain: A Natural and Cultural History by Cynthia Barnett Cynthia Barnett’s Rain begins four billion years ago with the torrents that filled the oceans, and builds to the storms of climate change. It...

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JURASSIC LIBRARY

Hidden in a dense forest of science books in the 567’s this adventurer has discovered Dinosaurs. You can also with these books: Dinosaurs Without Bones: Dinosaur Lives Revealed by Their Trace Fossils by Anthony J. Martin Welcome to the world of ichnology, the...

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Online Resource of the Month

Did you know that as a Wellesley resident you can enjoy bestselling ebooks (B&T Axis 360), academic technical computer books (EBL), and primary sources/images/videos and personal interests such as cooking or investing (Biblioboard) courtesy of the Massachusetts Library System and Mass Board of Library Commissioners? Take part...

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Biblioboard

Whether you are looking for a job, a new recipe, to check a fact, learn a language or discover a new novel, make the library your first stop for trusted and complete information. One of the many ways we provide you with instant access...

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Wellesley Community

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Did You Know?

The library has a new Hydration Station!

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FREE EBOOKS and MORE

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Resource of the Month

Britannica–not just an encyclopedia anymore! The Online Britannica is very interactive, has videos, images, maps, podcasts, websites, and of course those wonderful, reliable articles that made it a leader in the “good, old days.”

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