The UK’s most borrowed titles reveal a thirst for thrillers, crime novels and children’s fiction, with Jamie Oliver the only non-fiction title among the top 100
For those susceptible to moral panic, the list of 2013-14’s most borrowed books can’t fail to suggest once again an alarming public craving for murder and mayhem. But that’s not the only way of looking at it: the dominance of thrillers and detective fiction could instead be ascribed to a healthy need
(always liable to be greater in times of recession, terrorist violence or mass paranoia) for narratives in which broken communities are repaired thanks to a sleuth’s intelligence, or threats to terrified ones are eliminated after a long ordeal because of a hero’s courage and combat skills.
Library users clearly prefer these communities to be safely far away, however; usually in US cities or suburbs, but the chart’s No 1, Dan Brown’s Inferno, takes place in Italy, while Private Down Under (5), the ill-advisedly named leading title from James Patterson’s fiction factory, unfolds in Australia. As a result Mark Billingham’s The Dying Hours (10) is the only UK-based novel in the top 20, since Lee Child, also British, sets his Jack Reacher thrillers in the US.
Once you get past the all-conquering output of Jeff Kinney, the US creator of the Wimpy Kid (above) – two entries in the overall top 10, and six of the seven most borrowed kids’ titles – our children’s authors put up much more of a fight than their adult counterparts. Julia Donaldson and David Walliams both have several books in a top 100 titles’ list noticeably lacking Kinney’s compatriots such as Suzanne Collins, Rick Riordan or Lemony Snicket; and while the most borrowed authors rankings (where productivity – and hence lots of books on library shelves – is key) are topped by Patterson and his myriad co-writers for the eighth consecutive year, six of the top 10 places are occupied by British writers for children: Daisy Meadows (the Rainbow Magic team’s collective pseudonym), Donaldson, Francesca Simon, Adam Blade, Jacqueline Wilson and the big friendly ghost of Roald Dahl
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(always liable to be greater in times of recession, terrorist violence or mass paranoia) for narratives in which broken communities are repaired thanks to a sleuth’s intelligence, or threats to terrified ones are eliminated after a long ordeal because of a hero’s courage and combat skills.
Library users clearly prefer these communities to be safely far away, however; usually in US cities or suburbs, but the chart’s No 1, Dan Brown’s Inferno, takes place in Italy, while Private Down Under (5), the ill-advisedly named leading title from James Patterson’s fiction factory, unfolds in Australia. As a result Mark Billingham’s The Dying Hours (10) is the only UK-based novel in the top 20, since Lee Child, also British, sets his Jack Reacher thrillers in the US.
Once you get past the all-conquering output of Jeff Kinney, the US creator of the Wimpy Kid (above) – two entries in the overall top 10, and six of the seven most borrowed kids’ titles – our children’s authors put up much more of a fight than their adult counterparts. Julia Donaldson and David Walliams both have several books in a top 100 titles’ list noticeably lacking Kinney’s compatriots such as Suzanne Collins, Rick Riordan or Lemony Snicket; and while the most borrowed authors rankings (where productivity – and hence lots of books on library shelves – is key) are topped by Patterson and his myriad co-writers for the eighth consecutive year, six of the top 10 places are occupied by British writers for children: Daisy Meadows (the Rainbow Magic team’s collective pseudonym), Donaldson, Francesca Simon, Adam Blade, Jacqueline Wilson and the big friendly ghost of Roald Dahl
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