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January 11, 2025 17 mins
Get your bookmarks ready - it's time for the Boston Public Library's Winter Reading Challenge! This year, it's a global affair, with books and authors from all around the world in the spotlight. Anyone who takes on the challenge gets a special prize, too! Veronica Koven-Matasy, the BPL's Reader Services Supervisor, joins Nichole this week with details on the challenge and some recommendations to get started.
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Speaker 1 (00:07):
From WBZ News Radio in Boston. This is New England Weekend.
Each week right here, we come together, we talk about
all the topics important to you and the place where
you live. It is so good to be back with
you again this week. I'm Nicole Davis. If your New
year's resolution involved reading more books, good news. There is
an event going on right now that can help you
kickstart that over at the Boston Public Library. A few

(00:29):
days ago, their Winter Reading Challenge got underway, and you've
got some time to get it done too, as it
goes until the end of next month. This is not
just about reading a pile of books. This challenge is
actually going to help you explore books from all over
the world. On the show, we've got Veronica Covid Mattison,
the Reader Services director at the BPL Copley Branch. Veronica,
good to have you here For people who may be

(00:51):
listening from outside of Boston, or maybe in Boston and
just really haven't gone to the BPL much. Tell us
a little bit to start about what you have to offer.

Speaker 2 (01:00):
We have so many things to offer. I don't even
know where to start. Obviously, we have books, we have ebooks,
we have audio books, We have a very beautiful library
at the Central Library and Copley Square where I happen
to work, but we also have twenty four really magnificent branches,
and you know, we have a wonderful community around around

(01:26):
the library. I think that's really the most important thing
that the library has to offer, that we have a
space for people to come, and even if they can't come,
we have digital resources for people to access from home,
not just in Boston, but all across the state. I
think a lot of people don't realize that anyone in
Massachusetts can get a Boston Public Library card. And so

(01:46):
with that library card, you have access to our physical
collections but also to our digital collections, and so there's
a lot of really great books that you can access
wherever you are in the world, so long as you
have a Boston Public Library Card.

Speaker 3 (02:02):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (02:02):
You know, I just actually downloaded Libby for the first time,
and I am overwhelmed in the best way by everything
that the BPL offers on Libby. You've got I mean
books and magazines and newspapers and CDs and all this
other stuff. It really just is all encompassing, and it's
all like right on your phone. It's the best.

Speaker 3 (02:24):
Well.

Speaker 2 (02:24):
I hope you also will open up the Libby app
to the BPL's homepage and discover that we also have
all these lists through the Winter Reading Challenge.

Speaker 1 (02:32):
That is true. It's going to make life a lot easier,
that is true. So let's talk about the Winter Reading Challenge.
Why is this something that you do? I mean, people read,
don't they? Why are we challenging them to do this?

Speaker 3 (02:45):
I mean, I hope that people read.

Speaker 2 (02:48):
This is the third year that we're running the Winter
Reading Challenge at the Boston Public Library, and I think
partly this grew out of the success of Summer reading.
People have really warm nostalgic feelings about summer reading. They think, oh,
you know, I had such a wonderful time as a kid.
I've you know, I got I got my personal pizza,

(03:10):
I ticked off all the boxes, I got stickers. And
so we've we've been running Summer Reading for adults at
the Boston Public Library for for quite some years now,
and we would get people who would they would finish
some reading, and they'd say, oh, but like, don't you
have anything else for me? I really I want to
do more.

Speaker 1 (03:31):
Okay, So we.

Speaker 2 (03:32):
Thought, okay, Okay, well we'll well we'll try out oh
winter Reading challenge and the Summer Reading Challenge at the
Bostom Public Library is a Bingo card, so it's a
little a little more complicated for Winter reading. This is
hopefully going to get you know, all the people whose

(03:53):
New Year's resolution was they wanted to read more. It's
meant to be really accessible for anyone what they read
a lot already, or they're just getting back into reading,
or they want to read more.

Speaker 3 (04:06):
So the.

Speaker 2 (04:08):
Winter reading theme is read the World. And so the
first thing that I always tell people is whatever book
you are reading, it came from somewhere in the world,
and it counts for that part of the world.

Speaker 3 (04:22):
Ok you can read.

Speaker 2 (04:26):
The categories for Winter reading are Africa, the America's, Asia, Europe,
the Middle East, and Oceania, which really covers the whole
world except Antarctica, and so far as I'm aware, there
are no books coming out of Antarctica. So whatever you
are reading, it counts for at least one of them.

Speaker 1 (04:45):
Okay, Okay, I mean other than scientific stuff coming out
of McMurdo Station, but that really doesn't count for a
winter reading challenge. I think we're good on that that
seems like at its surface, like hell on Earth am
I going to read a book for from the Middle East?
Or how am I going to read a book from Oceania?
Like how am I going to find these books? But
I'm assuming BPL has an answer for that as well.

Speaker 3 (05:07):
We sure do. So.

Speaker 2 (05:09):
The great part about the challenge is that it's very accessible.
You're probably already reading books from some of these places,
but also it really encourages people to broaden their literary horizons,
to read books from places that maybe they've never been.
And so we do have recommendation lists for all of
the categories. We have recommendation lists for books from the

(05:31):
Middle East, books from Oceania, Oceania, in case anyone is confused,
is the part of the world that is Australia, New Zealand, Fiji, Polynesia.

Speaker 1 (05:43):
Like all those islands over there. And yeah, and you know, honestly,
these lists are great. I'm on the website right now,
I'm taking a look and you've got everything from graphic
novels to I don't know, mystery books. Here, we've got
nonfiction fiction. So really it doesn't have to be just
like a book about the Middle East. It doesn't have
to be a book about Africa. You can read all

(06:04):
sorts of different stuff and have this count.

Speaker 2 (06:06):
Absolutely And the book doesn't have to take place in
that particular area. What we encourage our challenging people to
do is to find an author who comes from that
place and just enjoy whatever that author brings to that
particular work of literature. And you know, we're we're living
in a global society. Lots of people come from a

(06:29):
lot of different places. And to that, I say, you know,
we're We're not policing what you do. We're not checking
your homework. If you if you want to count this
author for this region, you know, if if you if
you believe that they're from there or that they lived
there for a while, that's that counts.

Speaker 3 (06:51):
Just only count it once.

Speaker 1 (06:53):
And when I am done with my reading challenge, do
I get my pizza or do I get something else?
Because I would still love with or some.

Speaker 2 (07:00):
Point when you sign up for the challenge, and I
really wish that I'd brought my badge over to show
you when you sign up, not when you finish, but
when you sign up for the challenge, you get a
really cool collectible. Winter Reading twenty twenty five enamel pin,
which you could put on your lanyard like I see

(07:20):
that you have, just like I have, or on your
bag or on your jacket, and next year maybe you
will come back and you will do Winter Reading twenty
twenty six, and then you'll have a Winter Reading twenty
twenty six enamel pin.

Speaker 3 (07:35):
A's like a lanyard.

Speaker 1 (07:36):
Disney people collect all their pins, right, you could start
collecting bpl pins, bags or whatever. And I noticed too
that there are ya lists and there's also kids lists
as well, So this is not just an adult reading challenge.
This is for anybody of all ages.

Speaker 2 (07:51):
Yep, an all ages challenge. It's really fun actually to
do the challenge with picture books.

Speaker 1 (07:56):
I was gonna say, I mean, I would not put
it against myself if I wanted to go and get
some picture books, because look, adults love picture books too.
There's nothing wrong with that.

Speaker 3 (08:05):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (08:06):
Yeah, Sometimes the best reading that I've done in my
adulthood actually has been like YA stuff because it's really
really catchy. It's good.

Speaker 2 (08:14):
Yeah, I mean, like writing writing for younger readers is
like it's a different art, but it's an incredible art.

Speaker 3 (08:21):
And you know, I.

Speaker 2 (08:22):
Always I always feel people should read whatever, whatever they
enjoy reading. No one should ever feel embarrassed about reading
a book for a kid, a book for a teenager.
Like if you, if you are enjoying that book, that
is literally all that matters.

Speaker 1 (08:37):
Do you have any recommendations maybe of titles for people
to get started with? What would you recommend?

Speaker 2 (08:43):
I think many librarians struggle with the idea that you know,
there's there's no one perfect book for everyone, there is
the perfect book for a particular person. So I can
I can personally recommend books that I personally have read.
But sure you know, obviously if you if you are
looking for a book for you, first of all, you
should come to the library and tell.

Speaker 1 (09:03):
Us fair, that is fair, I'm overdue for a visit. Anyway,
we will.

Speaker 3 (09:08):
Help you pick out a book for you.

Speaker 2 (09:10):
But definitely, in terms of things that I have enjoyed
in the past, I read last year a really cool
kind of urban fantasy book called The Library of the
Dead by til Huchu, who is an author who is
born in Zimbabwe but lives I think now in Scotland,

(09:34):
and that.

Speaker 3 (09:34):
Was a it was really cool.

Speaker 2 (09:36):
It was like a very vivid It was set in Edinburgh,
and you know, a cool mystery like some magic I did.
I did really enjoy that, and I haven't I haven't
made my way to the sequel yet, but there are
sequels also if you are a serious kind of person.

(09:56):
I have not read it yet, but my plan for
for this year is to read this poetry anthology called
The Lantern and the Night Moths, which is a translation
by Elan Wang of some Tang dynasty poetry from China,

(10:18):
which has been highly recommended to me by some friends.
I'm really excited for that. It's on my It's on
my shelf at work, and I did not bring it
home with me.

Speaker 3 (10:28):
And I am currently.

Speaker 2 (10:29):
Reading for Oceania, which is maybe a little bit of
a stretch, but I believe Hawaii is technically part of Oceania.
I'm currently reading a book which I think comes out
in the States next week called Hamajang Luck, which is
a heist set in a dystopian future space station, which is,

(10:57):
you know, because you can't get away from capitalism, been
in space rapidly gentrifying.

Speaker 3 (11:02):
It's a sort of Ocean's.

Speaker 2 (11:04):
Eight Vibe esque. The protagonists X is the one putting
together the crew.

Speaker 3 (11:12):
It's really cool. It's really cool.

Speaker 2 (11:13):
So far, I'm about I think forty forty percent of
the way in and I'm really enjoying it. That's by
I don't know if I'm pronouncing this right. Makana Yamamoto,
who I believe now lives in Massachusetts but is from
Hawaii originally.

Speaker 1 (11:28):
All right, So clearly there's a lot going on out
there book wise. I mean, you can find anything you
want to read. But you brought up a really good point,
like just go to the library, and people might absolutely
feel overwhelmed. They might be like, I don't know what
to do with the library. I know a couple people
in my life who are only just starting now to
go and check out the library. But it's so much

(11:49):
more than just like wandering around a bunch of books.
There's plenty of help there too.

Speaker 2 (11:53):
Absolutely, we have librarians like me who are very friendly
and thrilled to talk to you about books anytime. I
know that at least at the Central Library and Copley Square,
we have displays up with books for each of these categories,
helpfully labeled so that you can browse at your leisure.
But also I strongly encourage always just go it up

(12:13):
to a librarian and ask for a recommendation. If they
don't feel like they have one off the cuff, you
can fill out a little form on our website to
request recommendations. You can say I need books for Oceania
and tell us what you like to read and we
will pull together some recommendations for you.

Speaker 3 (12:31):
We love to do that.

Speaker 1 (12:32):
And audiobooks do those count here too?

Speaker 2 (12:35):
Yes, that's audiobooks are reading, Graphic novels are reading, picture
books are reading.

Speaker 3 (12:41):
All reading is reading good?

Speaker 1 (12:43):
Okay, I know there's a big debate about that. Are
like our audio books books not at the library.

Speaker 2 (12:47):
At the library, we are very firmly on the audio
books are reading.

Speaker 1 (12:51):
Train phenomenal and honestly, again bringing up libbyan like the
other apps and stuff like that. I love the fact
that you can reserve a book and even and if
you know there's a few you want to get to,
you can kind of time it out throughout the challenge
to sort of give yourself like, Okay, I've got two
weeks until this becomes available, so let's get through this
one right now. So even if you've got a couple

(13:12):
that you have to wait for, you can sort of
structure it like that.

Speaker 3 (13:15):
I feel you absolutely can.

Speaker 2 (13:16):
And also I'm going to tell you not even a secret,
just maybe a thing that a lot of people don't realize,
which is that all of the public libraries in Massachusetts,
all of the systems have a reciprocal borrowing. So you
can go into Libby and say I want to add Minuteman,
and it will ask you what kind of library card
you have, and you say, I have a Boston Public
Library card, and you put in your Boston Public Library

(13:37):
card and then you can access Minuteman and you can
go in and you can say I want to go
to Noble, and it will ask you what kind of
library card you have, and you say I have a
Boston Public Library card, and you can add Noble and
Libby is very handily set up so once you have
all of your cards on, it will search for the
shortest wait list for you.

Speaker 1 (13:55):
That is phenomenal. I really did not know that. So
I could if I want to take a trip to
I don't know, Lexington or something, I can go walk
in the Lexington Public Library and borrow from there.

Speaker 3 (14:05):
No, so I'll just in Libby.

Speaker 1 (14:08):
Oh okay, right, you might be.

Speaker 2 (14:09):
Able to borrow a book from Lexington, and we do
have interlibrary loan if there's a book that you want
that is only available from Lexington. But it is significantly
more convenient that if I want to borrow an like
an audiobook, I don't have to go to Cambridge.

Speaker 3 (14:21):
They will they will deliver that right to my phone,
easy pasy.

Speaker 1 (14:24):
And you know what, a lot of people prefer the kindle,
they prefer the phone. So there you go. The options
are endless. I love this. So if oh, and the
last thing I wanted to ask you about, it's important
to know what you've read. And I know that you
have a reading log that is on your website. So
I like this because it kind of breaks it down
into each of the different categories and you get to

(14:45):
do smarts and crafts and fold it and put it
all together to yep.

Speaker 2 (14:50):
Yes, And if you go to our Instagram, there is
a little video of my hands folding it.

Speaker 1 (14:55):
Need some guidance, Very nice, very nice.

Speaker 2 (14:59):
It's it's giving you an extra sense of reward. You
really have to work for that reading log. Yes, you
fold it in all of the correct places.

Speaker 1 (15:07):
Well, you know, there's nothing wrong with the little arts
and crafts to kind of break it up. I have
no issue with that, and that's a really cute little log.
I totally dig it. It's super adorable. So if people
want to go get their log get started, where can
they find out more information?

Speaker 3 (15:21):
Awesome?

Speaker 2 (15:21):
So, first of all, you can always visit our website
BPL dot org slash winter. There's a downloadable reading log
in both English and Spanish, and also book recommendations for
all of the categories. If you want to pick up
your pin, you do have to go physically to any
Boston Public Library location and we will have printed printed

(15:42):
reading logs for you to take there if you prefer
to like get a pre printed copy, and most I
don't know about all, but most of the branches will
also have books out for you to pick from if
you are still looking for the perfect the perfect read
for one or more categories.

Speaker 1 (16:02):
Phenomenal and again, so many BPL branches. You don't have
to go downtown to Copley Square. Pretty much every neighborhood
has at least one.

Speaker 3 (16:09):
It is true.

Speaker 2 (16:09):
And I will also add, you know, as an added
incentive to keep coming back and you know, visiting your
local library. All of the locations have a map poster
and so every time you finish a book, come back
and tell us and we'll put a sticker on the map.

Speaker 3 (16:26):
For where you read.

Speaker 2 (16:28):
So right now it's the beginning of January, the maps
are pretty empty, but by the end of February each
location collectively we will have filled up our maps and
visited all these parts of the world.

Speaker 3 (16:39):
And I'm really excited to see it.

Speaker 1 (16:40):
Oh me too. This is wonderful, all right, Veronica from
the Boston Public Library, Thank you so much for your
time and happy reading and enjoy your pin.

Speaker 2 (16:48):
Thank you so much, you too, I look forward to
seeing you at happy libraries.

Speaker 1 (16:52):
Yes, have a safe and happy and healthy weekend, and
stay warm if you can, it's rather cold. Join me
again next week for another edition of the show. I'm
Nicole Davis from WBZ News Radio on iHeartRadio.
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