Flash Read to A-maze city’s book lovers

Acomb Library book sale April 2014

To launch this year’s Summer Reading Challenge, people across the city are being invited to join in a flash read and show their support for children’s reading!

This reading equivalent of a flash mob, aims to inspire more children and their parents to take a few minutes to share the pleasures of a good book, which is a key component of this year’s Summer Reading Challenge.

The flash read will take place on Friday 11 July at 11am when Explore is urging everyone to stop what they’re doing for a few minutes, pick up a good book and read. It only needs to take a few minutes but it will be a city-wide, fun event to remind everyone of the pleasures of reading. To spread the word, readers are invited to take a reading selfie and tweet it at #yorkflashread, or simply tell us what or where they are reading and join in.

(more…)

Community hub set to grow in Acomb

City of York Council is starting new drop-in sessions as part of its support for a very successful community-led project being run from a church in Acomb.

Lidget Grove

The sessions will be held at Lidgett Grove Methodist Church which is developing into a community hub. There, council officers will offer information and advice to local people on housing issues, anti-social behaviour or housing-related debt, as well as offering advice and information to anyone wanting to get more involved in the community. These will run on Wednesday mornings between 9.30 and 11.30am from Wednesday 9 July.

 

The church’s work started by setting up a very successful Community Café inspired by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation’s work on loneliness: what causes it and how to combat it. In Carr the main causes of loneliness were aging, family issues, not knowing neighbours, a lack of community facilities and chances to get involved with the community. Among the solutions identified were establishing a central location where people can find information, meet others and get support and services.

In summer 2013, a community café offering company and activities started up as a pilot scheme. It was so well-supported and popular that it carried on and now runs every Wednesday from 9:30 to 11:30am.
(more…)

Acomb Library events.

With the central library now closed until the autumn for refurbishing, the opening hours of the Acomb Front Street Branch have been extended.

It is additionally opening on Wednesdays (9am to 5pm), Saturday opening will be extended to 4pm while on Sundays the doors will be open between 11am to 3pm

This years Big City Read – The Orpheus Descent by Tom Harper

The Orpheus Descent will be available free from all libraries from Thursday 10 July. Look out for copies when out and about across the city.

Visit your local library today to get your Big City Read brochure which details all of the activities and events happening across the City over the summer

coverI have never written down the answers to the deepest mysteries, nor will I  ever…

The philosopher Plato wrote these words more than two thousand years ago, following a perilous voyage to Italy — an experience about which he never spoke again, but from which he emerged the greatest thinker in all of human history.

Today, twelve golden tablets sit in museums around the world, each created by unknown hands and buried in ancient times, and each providing the dead with the route to the afterlife. Archaeologist Lily Barnes, working on a dig in southern Italy, has just found another. But the thirteenth tablet is different. This tablet names the location to the mouth of hell itself. And then Lily vanishes.

Has she walked out on her job, her marriage, and her life — or has something more sinister happened? Her husband, Jonah, is desperate to find her. But no one can help him: not the police; not the secretive foundation that sponsored her dig; not even a circle of university friends who seem to know more than they’re saying. All Jonah has is belief, and a determination to do whatever it takes to get Lily back.

But like Plato before him, Jonah will discover the journey ahead is mysterious and dark and fraught with danger. And not everyone who travels to the hidden place where Lily has gone can return.

NB. While the York central library is closed for refurbishment (until the Autumn) books can be returned to a “drop box” located in the foyer of the Council HQ at West Offices or to any other library.

 

Acomb Explore Library now open 7 days a week