News / Cleeves still most popular
A NOVEL by crime author Ann Cleeves was once again the most borrowed book from the Shetland Library last year.
Thin Air, the latest in the writer’s Shetland series, was the most popular adult fiction book from the Lerwick library in 2015.
It is the eighth year in a row that Cleeves has topped the borrowing list.
Other popular titles included Alex Gray’s The Bird That Did Not Sing and Paula Hawkins’ The Girl on the Train.
Gray has six entries in the top ten of the library’s most popular books, while authors Stuart MacBride, Arne Dahl and Yrsa Sigurdardottir also feature after appearing at the Shetland Noir crime writing festival in November.
Celebrity chef Jamie Oliver’s Save With Jamie was the most borrowed non-fiction book, with the last three Guinness Book of World Records following.
Local lad James Morton’s How Baking Works was joint tenth on the list.
Safely Wounded, a book of Shetland wartime letters edited by Angus Johnson and Isabel Sinclair, was the most popular local publication, with Malachy Tallack’s travel-themed Sixty Degrees North following.
Marsali Taylor has three titles in the local top ten, including The Trowie Mound Murders and Death On A Longship.
Gruffalo author Julia Donaldson and The Ugly Truth writer Jeff Kinney dominated the children’s sections.
Andy Weir’s The Martian meanwhile was the most popular sci-fi and fantasy novel.
Shetland Library manager Karen Fraser said that while online services are proving popular, picking out titles from the shelves is still the public’s most popular method of borrowing books.
“Most lending is still of traditional physical books, and will be for a long time to come,” she said.
“Book reservations are free and can be done very simply online, so we will get the books you want as quickly as possible.”
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