Popular Library Books

Happy New Year! 

It’s always fun with the New Year to think about all the exciting books that are coming out and to guess which ones will be bestsellers.  Yet, despite how big some books are going to be, not everyone is reading the top books.  Some people aren’t on top of the trends, others read older books because they’ve heard from word of mouth that xyz is worth reading…even if it’s a few years after the publication date.  So sometimes it’s interesting to see what the “masses” are reading, or, in this case, what the most popular books checked out of the library were for 2010.

I normally like writing about New York City, but my boyfriend is from Washington State and passed along a few articles from the Seattle Times, so I thought it was worth including them as the information is interesting and through me, we’ll show some Pacific Northwest pride (P.S. NYC is still better).

Seattle Times lists these books as the most-often borrowed from Seattle Public Library in 2010:

1.    The Help by Kathryn Stockett (2009)

2.    The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo by Stieg Larsson (2009)

3.     The Girl Who Played with Fire by Steig Larsson (2010)

4.     The Lacuna by Barbara Kingsolver (2009)

5.     The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet’s Nest by Steig Larsson (2010)

6.     Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantel (2010)

7.     The Lost Symbol by Dan Brown (2009)

8.     Outliers: The Story of Success by Malcolm Gladwell (2008)

9.     Food Rules: An Eater’s Manual by Michael Pollan (2009)

10. I Stink! by Kate McMullan, illustrated by Jim McMullan (2006)

In a follow-up article, Seattle Times lists the most-often borrowed books for the entire county, which is actually of more interest to me because there are more kid’s books on the list.  Their explanation?  Families live outside of Seattle’s city limits.

1.    The Help by Kathryn Stockett (2009)

2.    The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo by Stieg Larsson (2009)

3.     The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet’s Nest by Steig Larsson (2010)

4.     Mockingjay by Suzanne Collins (2010)

5.     The Girl Who Played with Fire by Steig Larsson (2010)

6.    Catching Fire by Suzanne Collins (2009)

7.    The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins (2008)

8.     The Red Pyramid by Rich Riordan (2010)

9.     U if for Undertow by Sue Grafton (2010)

10. The Lightening Thief by Rick Riordan (2006)

My library usage (both from NYPL and my small library at home in CT) lines up with what Seattle Times reports, making me guess that their data might be decently representative of the country.  The titles in bold are the ones I borrowed from the library this year, and probably make up a third to a quarter of the books I checked out (like I’ve said before, I really like owning books even if it’s a bad financial idea).  My thoughts on some of those books (among others) can be found here or here.

I wonder what books will be the most often checked out this year…and how many have staying power to be on the list several years in a row!