The most-borrowed books from U.S. public libraries in 2024

December 30, 2024 5:49 AM

The Women, Tom Lake, Camino Ghost, Braiding Sweetgrass, Fourth Wing, Lessons in Chemistry, and others were among the top titles. [NPR]

Related: If you don't already know about it, check out the 2024 Fanfare EXTRAVAGANZA over at MeTa.

posted by cupcakeninja (19 comments total)

Public librarian here, and my bullshit detector was a-buzzing as I read the article until I got to this part:

NPR scanned the most-borrowed lists of 18 public libraries across the country. Not every library publicizes its year-end borrowing data, and there's no master list released by the American Library Association.

That's nothing like the title of article would lead you to believe.

The most-borrowed books from the USA's libraries, collectively, are whatever James Patterson, David Baldacci, Janet Evanovich, and others of that ilk shit out that year. At least Nelson DeMille won't be bothering us any more (died this year, though I won't be surprised if books continue to be churned out under his name).

But I guess listing those titles isn't likely to appeal to NPR, so they basically cherry-picked libraries with lists that fit their listener demographics. Don't get me wrong, I'm glad the books and authors got mentioned in the article instead of the library-collection-budget-killing usual suspects, but no way is the aggregate American taste in books not firmly rooted in dreck. Do better, NPR.
posted by Rykey at 6:55 AM on December 30 [21 favorites]

Rykey, how would you prefer they have framed this article? I ask because I'm well aware of the trends you mention, and I thought it was interesting to see NPR framing this article the way they did. I expect bullshit from many news sources, but I don't tend to expect outright falsehood from NPR. There's always a tension, of course, between what so many libraries & library workers want their patron to want, versus what they actually want, but I wondered if there was a little more substance to this story.
posted by cupcakeninja at 7:09 AM on December 30

The most-borrowed books from (some) U.S. public libraries in 2024

Ok, fixed, we can talk about the content now.

Braiding Sweetgrass being the top nonfiction in San Francisco, Seattle, Amherst, and Salt Lake City is fascinating to me. I am curious if that’s a viral-like-Fourth-Wing phenomenon or reflecting a broader interest in indigenous nonfic. Any librarians know the stats on Heart Berries by Terese Marie Mailhot for comparison?
posted by brook horse at 7:23 AM on December 30 [3 favorites]

Well, Heart Berries is five years younger than Braiding Sweetgrass, and it doesn't seem to have been pitched as broadly as Braiding Sweetgrass. Kimmerer's book has been on lists everywhere for years now, is held by (I did not count all versions) 2-3 times as many libraries, according to WorldCat, and it also exists in a bunch of related/derivative editions. It definitely hit and stayed popular with a number of different audiences. It was likewise chosen for a number of "campus read"-type programs, whereas Mailhot's book seems to have been chosen for fewer (I did not do exhaustive searching). Others might have more data or thoughts to share.
posted by cupcakeninja at 7:39 AM on December 30 [2 favorites]

The author of Braiding Sweetgrass had a new book (The Serviceberry) this year, and that can spur demand for older titles, especially when there's a waiting list for the new one.

Braiding Sweetgrass has been a popular choice for book clubs, too, and reading more diverse authors has been part of a lot of people's reading goals for a long time.

On an unrelated note, Bibliocommons needs to add a Spotify-style year-end Wrapped thing, like, two years ago.
posted by box at 7:45 AM on December 30 [3 favorites]

Interesting, thanks for sharing that info! Heart Berries was just my comparison because it’s what my MIL read after Braiding Sweetgrass and it sounded like she had been recced it by some media personality, so I had assumed maybe a wider reach than it had. Maybe there’s a better comparison work (I am definitely not fishing for recs for MIL now wink wonk)?
posted by brook horse at 8:29 AM on December 30

"Even though we published our top ten, none of these books made up more than 1% of our overall circulation," [Brian Bannon of the NYPL] said.

If there were an unlimited number of copies available of every book in the NYPL, I wonder if this would still be true. I suspect the list would look more like the Kids and YA lists, where six and four titles, respectively, are by the same author.
posted by bgrebs at 8:30 AM on December 30 [1 favorite]

You can tell they did not survey my library because surely "Trucks on Trucks" would be in one of the top five spots just based on the number of times my 3-year-old checked it out in 2024.

I don't have a lot of time to peruse the titles at the library so I just pick a few books put on display by the librarians and I have to say, they never steer me wrong. I think there was one book I didn't like this year using that system. I notice that several of the top books on this list are ones I borrowed from other people, rather than the library.
posted by Emmy Rae at 9:16 AM on December 30 [13 favorites]

Yeah, availability matters a lot for circulation. My otherwise-pretty-great public library (smaller city) has a tiny holding of ebooks compared to the last system I was in (a state capital). So a title that might have had 10/100 physical/ebook copies at the old library now has maybe 2/6. Of course I knew the whole library was smaller, but the ratios changed a lot more than I was expecting.

I found it kind of funny that the wait-list for e.g. Murderbot books could be 87 people waiting on 8 e-copies of Network Effect, while I could often waltz in and grab one (of three) off the shelf with no wait. My understanding is that smaller libraries get absolutely screwed by publishers/vendors on ebooks, but I guess my point is that I strongly agree that this says a lot about which books those 18 libraries hold most of, because the books that have 10/100 physical/ebook copies have a huge advantage over ones that sit at 2/5.
posted by SaltySalticid at 11:46 AM on December 30 [2 favorites]

I always go for the large print versions, and not just because my eyes are getting worse: they’re almost always more readily available than the rest.
posted by gottabefunky at 2:57 PM on December 30 [3 favorites]

My wife and my sisters were raving about The Thursday Murder Club and I got up to something like 46th in line for 5 copies. The hadcover was waitlisted too, and then I found it in Large Print.
(Just coincidence that LP is closing in on being necessary these days.

Loved Tom Lake. Liked Lessons In Chemistry.
posted by MtDewd at 5:11 PM on December 30 [1 favorite]

The most-borrowed books from the USA's libraries, collectively, are whatever James Patterson, David Baldacci, Janet Evanovich, and others of that ilk shit out that year. At least Nelson DeMille won't be bothering us any more (died this year, though I won't be surprised if books continue to be churned out under his name).

nothing like a librarian who is contemptuous of the things their patrons like to read :)
posted by knock my sock and i'll clean your clock at 5:33 PM on December 30 [4 favorites]

nothing like a librarian who is contemptuous of the things their patrons like to read :)

Cut them some slack

For the honey truck operator, life is shit
posted by ginger.beef at 8:58 PM on December 30 [4 favorites]

The things I'm surprised about at the ass end of 2024 would not include NPR lying about the most checked out books. Or in fact them lying about anything. Honestly I'm pretty disappointed that I feel this way.
As a Librarian in an academic library, I imagine our list would look massively different. Not because academic folks are inherently deeper than regular library goers but because they have to read things related to their programs. Of course sometimes they are very interested in the most arcane subjects, but often it's just stuff they need to read.
Hang in there public librarians, I love you and the things you do.
posted by evilDoug at 9:21 PM on December 30 [3 favorites]

'Lying' seems like a stretch.

They don't have a complete data set, so they used the lists they could find, and highlighted some things that are common and/or interesting. Book Riot recently did something similar.

As a premise for an article, it's... fine, which is probably why NPR also ran it in 2023.
posted by box at 6:14 AM on December 31

Cut them some slack

For the honey truck operator, life is shit

I'm not a fan of dumping on patrons, individually or as a group, but there's some truth in this. Becoming a librarian permanently changed my relationship with books in ways both bad and good--not just gaining knowledge, but simply being around them all them time, in massive quantities. I do still buy books for various reasons, but I no longer consider myself a collector.

Related: Stephen King has talked a number of times, in interviews and maybe in Danse Macabre, about the period of time when his wife, the writer Tabitha King, worked in a doughnut shop. After a while of that, neither of them (or one of them? can't remember) cared much for doughnuts. I hope both or whichever of them eventually got their taste back for them, because doughnuts, but... yeah.
posted by cupcakeninja at 6:42 AM on December 31 [2 favorites]

Trucks on Trucks

Around 25 years ago my best friends had quadruplet boys. I was visiting them when the boys were around 3. My friend said "watch this" and put in a VHS tape of big trucks, bulldozers, and such. Boys came RUNNING from all over the house. It was hilarious.
posted by neuron at 10:40 AM on December 31 [1 favorite]

I am much more likely to read an old book than a new one, but Titanium Noir (Nick Harkaway, 2023) and Someone You Can Build a Nest In (John Wiswell, 2024) were both immensely fun.
posted by neuron at 10:44 AM on December 31 [1 favorite]

Mod note: [#HappyNewYear! We've added this to the New Year's roundup on the sidebar and Best Of blog!]
posted by taz (staff) at 12:41 AM on January 1