The Most Popular Books In US Public Libraries This Year
Welcome to The Best of Book Riot, our daily round-up of what’s on offer across our site, newsletters, podcasts, and social channels. Not everything is for everyone, but there is something for everyone.
Looking at 40 different top library book checkout lists from big and small public libraries across the USA, here are some of the most popular books of the year. What makes looking at public library book popularity fun is that it is year-agonistic, meaning that books published this year might sit alongside books published several years ago. Genre books tend to see more top books lists in libraries than in other outlets who compile or write about the year’s best or top books.
This is the last Friday before Christmas, so it’s no surprise that holiday books are all over the Most Read Books on Goodreads list this week.
Best of Book Riot
Sign up to Best of Book Riot to receive a round-up of the day’s new content.
During the holiday season, gift giving can be…an adventure, to say the least. But at my house, I’ve turned it into a sort of challenge. My spouse’s and my reading tastes rarely overlap, but I still feel determined to buy him books that he will adore. He is a typical “dad book” lover—lots of history (especially books with paintings of ships on the cover). Recently, I sat him down and had him write out the top nonfiction books that I’ve ever recommended to him.
Haunted house books aren’t new. It’s a whole subgenre of horror fiction, and I have read and recommended plenty of them. So what makes a haunted house book worth reading? What makes it stand out? The thing about haunted house stories is that they’re also family stories. It’s about the people who live in the house, their traumas, their relationships, and how those things are magnified and reflected back to them through the supernatural things going on in their home. If you’re invested in the family, you’re invested in the haunting. Rachel Harrison’s new novel, Play Nice, nails the scares and the family drama, making it basically the perfect haunted house story.
Last week kicked off the first in a trilogy of posts focused on comic book censorship in America. History professor and comic censorship scholar Brian Puaca talked about what made burning comics a seductive activity in post-World War II America. This week, he is back to offer a more optimistic read on comics censorship through that same period and on into our present day.
Just as many TV shows will at some point have a Christmas special, comic books are also known to commemorate the season with appropriately themed adventures. This year, I thought we’d take a look back at Christmas of 1983, with DC Comics Presents#67.
Source link
