A measure of a community can be measured, to some extent, by the books that patrons of the local library check out the most. It gives you a sense of what they are concerned about, what they are curious about, and age range of reader. Last year, the New York Public Library began keeping track of the most checked out books of the year. For 2021, the librarians looked at the circulation data from all three branches (Bronx, Manhattan, and Staten Island) to develop their list of the most checked out books (including printed and e-books) for 2021:
1. The Vanishing Half: A Novel by Brit Bennett
2. Mexican Gothic by Silvia Moreno-Garcia
3. Klara and the Sun: A Novel by Kazuo Ishiguro
4. A Promised Land by Barack Obama
5. Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents by Isabel Wilkerson
6. The Guest List: A Novel by Lucy Foley
7. Where the Crawdads Sing by Delia Owens
8. Maybe You Should Talk to Someone: A Therapist, Her Therapist, and Our Lives Revealed by Lori Gottlieb
9. The Other Black Girl: A Novel by Zakiya Dalila Harris
10. Malibu Rising: A Novel by Taylor Jenkins Reid
The editors of Quartz, an online business magazine, conducted a survey to find out the most checked out book among all U.S. public libraries. Although there are 9,057 public libraries in the U.S. (116,867 total if you included special, armed forces, and government libraries), they focused on public libraries in major cities. Based on the data from 14 libraries that responeded, here are the most popular U.S. library books of 2021:
1. Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents by Isabel Wilkerson
2. The Vanishing Half by Brit Bennett
3. The Four Winds by Kristin Hannah
4. Diary of a Wimpy Kid: The Deep End by Jeff Kinney
5. Where the Crawdads Sing by Delia Owens
6. The Midnight Library by Matt Haig
7. A Promised Land by Barack Obama
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For further reading: http://www.nypl.org/spotlight/top-checkouts-2021
qz.com/2102283/the-most-popular-us-library-books-of-2021/