Local library officials talk about the hottest books on people’s nightstands and coffee tables in 2009.
Readers — and movie buffs — made good use of the local libraries last year. And numbers are sure to go up in 2010 as more people discover they can save money by having access to their favorite series and authors for free.
Lynn McIntosh, director of the Chickasaw Library Series headquarters in Ardmore and Lynnette Haggerty, assistant director of the Ardmore Public Library echoed each other in saying that readers of all ages have been captivated by the “Twilight” vampire series by Stephenie Meyer, and adults have gravitated to the self-help sections to kick-start their resolutions.
McIntosh took a poll among her staff, which overwhelmingly agreed that vampires are the going thing in books these days.
“Anything that has to do with vampires has as many, if not more, adult women reading them,” McIntosh said.
Sarah Palin’s “Going Rogue” is still popular among readers, and diet books and cookbooks have been getting plenty of attention.
Christian fiction by authors like Karen Kingsbury, Beverly Lewis, Wanda Brunstetter and Lorene Snelling have a dedicated following, but paranormal romances — and romances in general are also popular.
Best sellers — no matter what they are — practically fly off the shelves.
“They go out as soon as they come in,” McIntosh said. “While we don’t have a lot of holds on them, they do tend to come in and go out frequently.”
Haggerty said one of the biggest changes APL has seen is in DVD checkouts. The statistics for 2009 show a 139-percent increase over 2008 in movie rentals. And, even though the library only got its CD collection in the middle of 2008, there was still a 238-percent increase in their popularity in a year’s time.
“In 2009, we had about 5,700 checkouts of CDs,” Haggerty said. “But with the movies, we had 57,000 checkouts. But you have to realize they can only keep them seven days at a time. Books are kept out for four weeks, so it seems like the statistics are less.”
In general trends, James Patterson, Nora Roberts, Stephenie Meyer and PC and Kristen Cast are top names and have long waiting lists.
The best part of all is, while you’re waiting for one book, there’s always another one available to be read in the meantime.
Youth
- Parents who pick books for their children are asking for the current Sequoia books and Accelerated Readers.
- Anything supernatural captures the attention of younger readers, like Cassandra Clare’s series “City of Bones,” “City of Ashes” and “City of Glass.” And, of course, the entire "Harry Potter" series is still red hot.
- Young girls like fairy stories, and are still entranced by “The Princess Diary” series of books.
- The teen series “Pretty Little Liars” by Sara Shepard is very popular among girls.
- The young male set is branching out with “The Ranger’s Apprentice” series by Australian author John Flanagan.” And they still read anything “Star Wars” related.
