Big Library Read

The next Big Library Read title, Wild New World by Dan Flores, will be available to read digitally through Libby from May 9 to May 23. There will be no wait lists or holds during this time.

Overdrive and the Libby app are available to card holders who reside in Alachua, Putnam and Levy counties. Don't have a card? Find out how to apply for one today!

Read the book, then participate in our discussion event.

Thursday, May 23 at 5:00 p.m. at the Headquarters Library.

Join the discussion on social media, too, with #BigLibraryRead. Don't forget to tag the library @alachualibrary

Dan Flores’s Wild New World explores the history of animals and people in North America. Following a New Mexico flash flood in 1908, a cowboy discovered the remains of a herd of extinct giant bison, which proved that humans had been in North America much longer than previously thought, and it was physical proof of the long-standing danger our human ancestors presented to the continent’s evolutionary richness.
In thrilling narrative style, and with portraits of iconic creatures such as mammoths, horses, wolves, and bison, Flores describes the evolution and historical ecology of North America like never before. Wild New World explores the complex relationship between humans and wildlife in North America, examining how it has evolved over millennia and emphasizing the importance of conservation efforts and preserving biodiversity in the face of increasing human activity.
Wild New World is the winner of the 2023 Rachel Carson Environment Book Award and the 2023 National Outdoor Book Award for Natural History Literature, and was shortlisted for the 2023 Phi Beta Kappa Society Ralph Waldo Emerson Award.

Dan Flores is a Santa Fe-area writer originally from Louisiana who spent much of his career as a University of Montana professor. The author of 11 books, he has written for the New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, the Chicago Tribune, and Time Magazine. Along with appearances on Anthony Bourdain’s Parts Unknown and Joe Rogan’s podcasts, Flores is featured in Ken Burns’s 2023 American Buffalo documentary. His most recent books are American Serengeti, winner of the Stubbendieck Distinguished Book Prize in 2017; Coyote America, a 2016 New York Times Bestseller, Sigurd Olson Nature Writing Prize winner, and Finalist for PEN America’s E. O. Wilson Prize in 2017; & Wild New World, winner of the 2023 Rachel Carson Environment Book Prize and the 2023 National Outdoor Book Award for Natural History Literature.