Resources and information – keep visiting this page, as we will be updating it regularly.
We have moved some of our links to our YouTube Channel so that you can see all of them together. We have a playlist and some favourite channels
Free e-books or online reading
- From Explore e-books and emagazines & newspapers
- A short history of Literary York
- Tales of resilience and heroism, new historical fiction Authors without Borders
- Classics and books published before 1924 Project Gutenberg
Free e-audiobooks
- From Explore e-audiobooks
- BBC Sounds – Click on the latest episodes to find the whole series BBC Sounds audiobooks
- Audiobooks from LibriVox
- Poetry on audio from Wrecking Ball Press
- Free e-audiobooks from Ulverscroft until 31 July registration required for this service.
Online Events
- The Hay Festival goes digital 18-31 May
- Be All Right writing and reading activities from Ilkley Literature Festival
- My VLF has ongoing author events, a book club and will host a historical fiction festival on June 6 with some big name authors.
- Book events and reviews from the Bookseller’s BookGig
- The Lockdown LitFest started on 6 April
- How to Academy ongoing events, podcasts and videos
- Follow @SirPatStew on Twitter to hear him read a sonnet a day
- The Rime of the Ancient Mariner Big Read – verses read aloud (and text) by people you will recognise. The next verse is added daily
- Online content from Faber
- At Home with Penguin – a weekly peek into the homes of some of our most loved authors
- Wordsworth 250 readings of Wordsworth’s poetry by his descendants and others. Listen to a poem or submit your own reading.
Bookish Podcasts
- Thrilling tales – Seattle Public Library
- Women’s Prize for Fiction
- Guardian Books Podcast
- Penguin podcasts
- Damian Barr’s Literary Salon
- British Library podcasts
Reading groups
- We have two online reading groups you can join,
- You can sign up to Goodreads and join Explore York Reading Group
- You can join our Share the Joy group on Facebook, just search for the group and ask to join.
- If you are already a member of a reading group, there are several ways you can take your meeting online. You can be connected in the following ways over Wi-Fi or an internet connection if you have any of the following apps.
- Facebook messenger video or phone chat (can be used for groups)
- WhatsApp video and phone call. You need to create a WhatsApp group with at least one other participant but then you can ‘Invite to Group via link’ for people to join which can help if you’re worried about data protection. To start a group call click on the icon.
- Google Hangouts if you have Gmail or Google accounts
- Zoom is an easy and free to use for group meetings lasting under 40 minutes. Just sign up, set up a ‘meeting’ and share the link to the rest of your group to join in. Zoom has also been recommended as a dementia-friendly online video communication. See the Zoomettes Guide to ZOOM and watch the ‘How to use ZOOM’ film here from the Zoomettes courtesy of the Dementia Voices website.
- Create a closed Facebook group
- Advice from the BBC about how to set up an online reading group Novel Connections
Learning
- Free online courses from the Open University, supported by free e-books on Kindle