Libraries bounced back this year, as bookish types returned to their favoured hunting grounds to gather reading materials.
Throughout the pandemic, North Shore libraries saw digital borrowing rise in a time when people were staying closer to home, noted Sarah Felkar, assistant director of West Vancouver Memorial Library.
“E-book and downloadable audiobook circulation grew more than 20 per cent at all three systems,” she said in a statement. “Now, we’re very excited that print circulation across the North Shore has returned to, and in some cases surpassed, 2019 levels.”
In total, the three public library systems circulated more than 2.5 million titles this year, including two million physical items.
No one book topped the charts across all North Shore establishments in 2022, but the most popular titles were Five Little Indians by Michelle Good – the most checked-out adult fiction title at both North Vancouver District Public Library and WVML – and The Paris Apartment by Lucy Foley, the most checked-out adult fiction title at North Vancouver City Library.
Here are the rest of the most-borrowed picks of the year:
Top three titles – adult fiction
NVCL
1. The Paris Apartment (Lucy Foley)
2. The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo (Taylor Jenkins Reid)
3. It Ends with Us (Colleen Hoover)
NVDPL
1. Five Little Indians (Michelle Good)
2. Cloud Cuckoo Land (Anthony Doerr)
3. The Maid (Nita Prose)
WVML
1. Five Little Indians (Michelle Good)
2. The Lincoln Highway (Amor Towles)
3. Where the Crawdads Sing (Delia Owens)
Top three titles – adult nonfiction
NVCL
1. Atomic Habits: An Easy & Proven Way to Build Good Habits & Break Bad Ones (James Clear)
2. Atlas of the Heart: Mapping Meaningful Connection and the Language of Human Experience (Brené Brown)
3. Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge and the Teachings of Plants (Robin Wall Kimmerer)
NVDPL
1. Maybe You Should Talk to Someone: A Therapist, Her Therapist, and Our Lives Revealed (Lori Gottlieb)
2. Freezing Order: a True Story of Russian Money Laundering, Murder, and Surviving Vladimir Putin’s Wrath (Bill Browder)
3. Finding the Mother Tree: Discovering the Wisdom of the Forest (Suzanne Simard)
WVML
1. Freezing Order: A True Story of Russian Money Laundering, Murder, and Surviving Vladimir Putin’s Wrath (Bill Browder)
2. Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge and the Teachings of Plants (Robin Wall Kimmerer)
3. Finding the Mother Tree: Discovering the Wisdom of the Forest (Suzanne Simard)
Top three titles – children’s fiction
NVCL
1. Dog Man: Brawl of the Wild (Dav Pilkey)
2. The Babysitters Club: Dawn and the Impossible Three (Gale Galligan)
3. Dog Man: Fetch-22 (Dav Pilkey)
NVDPL
1. Dog Man: Mothering Heights (Dav Pilkey)
2. Dog Man: Grime and Punishment (Dav Pilkey)
3. Guts (Raina Telgemeier)
WVML
1. Big Shot (Jeff Kinney)
2. Diary of a Wimpy Kid: The Meltdown (Jeff Kinney)
3. Rowley Jefferson’s Awesome Friendly Spooky Stories (Jeff Kinney)
Top three titles – teen fiction
NVCL
1. Heartstopper V. 1 (Alice Oseman)
2. Heartstopper V. 2 (Alice Oseman)
3. The Summer I Turned Pretty (Jenny Han)
NVDPL
1. Borders (Thomas King)
2. Six of Crows (Leigh Bardugo)
3. Heartstopper (Alice Oseman)
WVML
1. Code of Honour (Alan Gratz)
2. The Hunger Games (Suzanne Collins)
3. The Maze Runner (James Dashner)
Top three titles – adult DVDs
NVCL
1. House of Gucci
2. Belfast
3. No Time to Die
NVDPL
1. No Time to Die
2. Belfast
3. Dune
WVML
1. French Exit
2. No Time to Die
3. Dune
