It’s that time of year – Christmas approaching, nights drawing in, chilly weather – the perfect time to curl up with a good book.
We’re starting to collate ‘Best Books of the Year’ lists to provide some recommendations for Christmas presents or holiday reading but first here are our most borrowed books of the year:
Top Ten Fiction:
| Scythe: Book 1 | Neal Shusterman |
| Heartstopper: Volume 1 | Alice Oseman |
| Heartstopper: Volume 3 | Alice Oseman |
| Where the crawdads sing | Delia Owens |
| The Husbands Secret | Liane Moriarty |
| Heartstopper: Volume 4 | Alice Oseman |
| Nineteen eighty-four | George Orwell |
| Normal People | Sally Rooney |
| A good girl’s guide to murder: Book 1 | Holly Jackson |
| Lessons in Chemistry | Bonnie Garmus |
Here are our borrowing headlines:
- Most borrowed book: Scythe by Neal Shusterman
- Top author: Alice Oseman (Heartstopper graphic novel series has been hugely popular)
- Top series: Scythe (The trilogy of Scythe, Thunderhead and The Toll)
- Top non-fiction title: Alexander the Great: A very short introduction by Hugh Bowden
Most popular series:
- Arc of a Scythe by Neal Shusterman
- Demon Slayer (Manga) by Koyoharu Gotouge
- Heartstopper by Alice Oseman
- The Promised Neverland (Manga) by Kaiu Shirai
- Rivers of London by Ben Aaronovitch
Most popular non-fiction
- Alexander the Great: A very short introduction by Hugh Bowden
Joint 2nd:
- The Origins of the Second World War by A.J.P. Taylor
- Bad Samaritans: the guilty secrets of rich nations and the threat to global prosperity by Ha-Joon Chang
Joint 3rd:
- What you need to know about economics by George Buckley
- Economics for the IB by Ellie Tragakes
- Sapiens: A brief history of humankind by Yuval Noah Harari
- Thinking fast and slow by Daniel Kahneman
- Atomic habits by James Clear
- Nudge by Richard H. Thaler
4th:
- Invisible Women by Caroline Criado-Perez
Joint 5th:
- Ways of Seeing by John Berger
- When China rules the world by Martin Jacques
- Law’s Empire by Ronald Dworkin
- Prisoners of Geography by Tim Marshall
- Seven brief lessons on physics by Carlo Rovelli
- The Gothic: A very short introduction by Nick Groom
- To engineer is human: the role of failure in successful by Henry Petroski
- Why humans have cultures by Michael Carrithers
- Other minds by Peter Godfrey-Smith
Books of the Year lists – round-up
Maureen Corrigan’s favorite books of the year: 10 disparate reads for a hectic 2022 (NPR)
The Waterstones blog – Best Books of the Year. Arranged in thematic categories browse fiction, biography, thrillers and more. You can browse authors’ favourite reads here
Waterstones have chosen Katy Hessel’s ‘Story of Art Without Men’ as their Book of the Year. This is available from the library now.
The 10 Best Books of 2022
The staff of The New York Times Book Review choose the year’s standout fiction and nonfiction.
Penguin Best Books of the Year
New York Public Library – Best Books of the Year – Adults
Here is a good list of the best books of 2022 for young children and teens (reviewed by the Guardian).