Get Ready for One eRead Canada!
Kick off 2021 by joining readers across the country for One eRead Canada, the first national, bilingual (English and French) digital eBook club, featuring the exquisite and celebrated novel Vi by Kim Thúy. Readers from St John’s to Nanaimo to Whitehorse, along with more than 600 public libraries, will be taking part in this simultaneous reading party. From January 1 to 31, 2021, 85 per cent of all public libraries in Canada, including ours, will offer free, unlimited access to Vi in eBook and eAudiobook formats. The book will be available in both languages, without holds or waitlists, to everyone with a CPL library card.
Vi is a masterful novel about the lives and experiences of Vietnamese refugees in Canada. It was a finalist for the 2019 Governor General’s Literary Award in translation and longlisted for the 2018 Scotiabank Giller Prize. This is your chance to have a taste of Vi’s life, a journey of self-discovery that will take you across the globe from Vietnam to Canada to the fall of the Berlin Wall.
So how to take part? You’ve got a few options. The main one is to grab a digital copy of the book from our Overdrive collection. From Jan. 1-31, Vi is available in eBook or eAudiobook format, in English or French, with no waitlists and no holds. Borrow it on your computer, or download the Libby app (App Store | Google Play) to read on your tablet or phone. If you’ve never used Overdrive or Libby before, here’s a tutorial to help you get started. If you don’t have a library card, fill out this form to request a temporary digital card.
If you’re not able to download or prefer a print book, you can join us at our newest book club, Reading Other Lives. It meets for the first time via Zoom on Jan. 15 at 1pm (registration is now open), and you can place a hold on a copy of the book to pick up at your nearest branch.
You can start connecting with readers across the country right away by joining the One eRead Canada Facebook Group or by using the hashtag #1eReadCanada. Every week in January, you’ll be invited to discuss a question on the themes, characters, and overall impressions of the eBook. Then, join book lovers from coast to coast to coast on the One eRead Canada Facebook group on January 19 (in English) and January 20 (in French) at 7 pm for a live Q&A with the author to discuss some of the many themes that arise from this profoundly moving work.
In addition to being a bilingual, cross-country simultaneous reading experience, One eRead Canada underlines the Canadian Urban Libraries Council’s ongoing campaign, eContent for Libraries. Libraries want to work with the big publishers to establish fair pricing models that can benefit everyone and ensure equitable access to digital content such as eBooks and eAudiobooks. Collaborative library initiatives like One eRead Canada introduce readers and listeners to new books and authors, positively impacting sales of digital content – to the benefit of publishers, authors, and readers.
We hope you’ll enjoy Vi and this unique country-wide reading experience.