Newsletter

New Mexico State Library for the Blind & Print Disabled Spring 2026 Newsletter

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Summer Reading Starts Soon!

NLS Summer Reading Program for Youth

The National Library Service for the Blind and Print Disabled Summer Reading Program for youth ages 3-17 begins mid-June. The theme for this year’s program is “Unearth a Story”. This is the same program being used in public libraries throughout New Mexico. We can provide braille and audiobook recommendations. If you’d like to earn prizes based on minutes of reading, sign up!

For more information contact Jennifer Finley-McGill, 505-476-9773 or Jennifer.McGill@dca.nm.gov.

NLS Summer Reading Program for Adults

The Braille Institute and the National Library Service have combined efforts to present an adult summer reading program. The program launches on June 15, and on June 16 the guest speaker will be Peter Heller, author of the post-apocalyptic novel, The Dog Stars (DB75493).

Inspired by the “Unearth a Story” reading theme, stories are everywhere – embedded in landscapes, preserved in archives, carried through families, and reflected in individual lives. The Braille Institute Library, in partnership with National Parks Service Rangers and Library of Congress sound-designers and NLS network librarians are offering narrated soundscapes of several national parks: Badlands National Park, Hawaii Volcanoes National Park, Everglades National Park, and Cape Cod National Seashore.

Other author events during this programming include: Blind authors Leona Godin (There Plant Eyes BR23825, DB104014), and Georgina Kleege (More Than Meets the Eye BR22550, DB93533), explore nonfiction as excavation – how the personal and the scholarly intertwine to bring buried narratives to the surface. And Excavating a Life: Megan Marshall Author Event: Pulitzer Prize-winning biographer Megan Marshall will be in conversation with author Heather Clark about her memoir After Lives (DBC11807).

For more information about these events and links to programming scroll midway down to Adult Programming and Activities: https://www.loc.gov/nls/services-and-resources/summer-reading/

Soliciting Interest in a Book Club

The New Mexico Library for the Blind wants to know if you would be interested in participating in an online book club with staff members of the library. The meetups would occur quarterly and incorporate titles selected for the Santa Fe Society & Foundation for Speculative Fiction (sci-fi/fantasy books). Members would need to be willing to use Zoom online or over the phone. Please reach out to us at (505) 946-8486 or email us at sl.lbpd@dca.nm.gov to register your interest, and receive further information.

DA2s Are Available to All

The National Library Service (NLS) has approved the distribution of the new DA2 player to all patrons. There is no longer a wait list and no longer any special qualifications for a request.

The DA2 features Wi-Fi and Bluetooth connectivity and 28 GB of internal storage. That means DA2 users can connect to BARD (the NLS Braille and Audio Reading Download website), download audiobooks and magazines, store them on the player, and listen to them over Bluetooth-enabled speakers, hearing aides, or headphones. If these features sound appealing please reach out to one of our reader advisers.

Celebrating Our Volunteers

On April 9 the New Mexico Library for the Blind held its annual volunteer luncheon to honor all the hard work that our volunteers provide for both the staff and patrons of the library. The 2025 Volunteer of the Year Award was presented to Tracy Kerr, who has diligently and thoughtfully worked to review and edit our audiobooks for more than two years.

This year’s event was hosted inside of the state library building and featured a special reading and Q&A session with local author Hampton Sides. The author of such narrative histories as Blood and Thunder (DB064017) and The Wide, Wide Sea (DB120831) provided thoughtful insight into his writing process and previewed his upcoming book about the history of the American West leading to the Sand Creek Massacre.

This event, and many others, are supported by the Friends of the New Mexico Library for the Blind. The Friends of the New Mexico Library for the Blind is a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization that supports the mission of the library by funding special projects and equipment, particularly in relation to local recording studio narrations and staff and volunteer appreciation. If interested in donating, you may make out a check to: “Friends of the New Mexico Library for the Blind” and mail to:

New Mexico State Library
Friends of LBPD
1209 Camino Carlos Rey
Santa Fe, NM 87507

New from Our Recording Studio

DBC10527 – Home Front: A Novel
by Lois Jones; read by Denise Poage

Wartime in rural America. Families torn asunder, lives disrupted, fundamental human values tested. Young men become the nation’s warriors; some never return. And on the Home Front, farm folk are suddenly confronted with overwhelming problems. Memorable characters move this panoramic plot forward, and as the Martin family and their neighbors struggle, we see their real natures evolve. Adult. Explicit descriptions of sex. Strong language. Violence.

DBC10494 – Mud, Blood, and Ghosts: Populism, Eugenics, and Spiritualism in the American West
by Julie Carr; read by Ellen Humphreys

Populism has become a global movement associated with nationalism and strong-man politicians, but its root causes remain elusive. Mud, Blood, and Ghosts exposes one deep root in the soil of the American Great Plains. Julie Carr traces her own family’s history through archival documents to draw connections between U.S. agrarian populism, spiritualism, and eugenics, helping readers to understand populism’s tendency toward racism and exclusion. Adult. Descriptions of sex. Some strong language. Some violence.

DBC10523 – Madwoman of El Malpais: A Mysterious New Mexican Adventure
by P. J. Christman; read by Bruce Herr

The story focuses on a nine-year-old visionary, Kahlo, and her archeo-astronomical speculations in New Mexico’s Chaco Canyon. There is no written history of ancient Chaco residents, yet Kahlo sees things others don’t. Her mother, Aurore, is trying to solve her sister Ashleigh’s death that may have been a murder. A retired Navajo Uranium Miner and former Santa Fe Railroad employee, a Zuni former Rhodes Scholar and now Park Ranger, a half Navajo/half Welsh former Vietnam vet who lives in the desert hills south of Chaco, and a sports writer from New York, all are seeking adventure, treasure, or rewarding experience in the mystic New Mexican outback. There are seven narrators, including Kahlo’s grandmother, each of whom casts a different perspective on high-desert adventure and discovery. Adult. Unrated.

DBC10518 – Citizen Carl: The Editor who Cracked Teapot Dome, Shot a Judge, and Invented the Parking Meter
by Jack McElroy; read by John Pound

Educator, lawyer, editor, inventor, entrepreneur, and civic booster, Carl Magee helped shape New Mexico and Oklahoma in the years after gaining statehood, garnering fame along the way. Jack McElroy’s fascinating biography of “Citizen Carl” tells the story of a man whose exploits were as diverse and complex as the American Southwest he loved. Magee purchased the Albuquerque Journal from the syndicate responsible for reelecting Senator Albert Bacon Fall, soon to become secretary of the Interior. Magee battled the Republican machine in New Mexico, a fight that sent Fall to prison in the Teapot Dome scandal and saw Magee repeatedly tried on charges of criminal libel, contempt of court, and even manslaughter. Forced to sell the Journal, he then started the newspaper that would become the Albuquerque Tribune. Magee’s fame prompted Scripps-Howard to buy the Tribune, retaining him as editor and adopting his motto: “Give Light and the People Will Find Their Own Way.” Adult.

DBC10531 – The king of Taos: A Novel
by Max Evans; read by John Pound

Set in the late 1950s, the novel tells the stories of sharp-witted Zacharias Chacon, aspiring artist Shaw Spencer, and a circle of characters who drink, fight, love, argue, and – mostly – talk. Readers will enjoy this witty and moving evocation of unforgettable characters as they look for work, love, comfort, dignity, and bottomless oblivion. Adult.

New Recordings from Network Libraries

DBC18732 – Battle on the Bay: The Civil War Struggle for Galveston
by Edward T. Cotham; read by Jared Smith

The Civil War history of Galveston is one of the last untold stories from America’s bloodiest war, despite the fact that Galveston was a focal point of hostilities throughout the conflict. As other Southern ports fell to the Union, Galveston emerged as one of the Confederacy’s only lifelines to the outside world. When the war ended in 1865, Galveston was the only major port still in Confederate hands. In this beautifully written narrative history, Ed Cotham draws upon years of archival and on-site research, as well as rare historical photographs, drawings, and maps, to chronicle the Civil War years in Galveston.

DBC30747 – Ornette Coleman: A Harmolodic Life by John Litweiler; read by Paul Kauppila

Born in Fort Worth, Texas, alto saxophonist Ornette Coleman became one of the great architects of jazz with his unique improvisational style and his “harmolodic” compositions. This biography is a compelling portrait of a living legend and a lively history of postwar jazz. Strong language.

DBC06987 – The Quiet World: Saving Alaska’s Wilderness Kingdom, 1879-1960 by Douglas Brinkley; read by John Ogliore

This tribute to Alaska’s wilderness regions details key preservation activities, leading contributors, and historical events. The Quiet World is an epic history of the grassroots activists and artists who, with the U.S. federal government, saved vast reaches of wild Alaska from 1879 to 1960. Adult.

What Is the LBPD Staff Reading?

Jeremy – “Simultaneously a sweeping historical epic, a gritty noir story, and a yearning romance, Five Decembers (DB108204) by James Kestrel packs in as much story as possible into its compact runtime. Detective Joe McCrady is a detective in Honolulu in December 1941, and something is fouling up the seeming paradise of the island. One murder investigation later and Detective McCrady is pulled into a web of mystery, romance, intrigue and international conspiracy as he has to navigate the case and the complications caused by World War II. A well-deserved winner of the 2022 Edgar Award for Best Mystery Novel.”