Shetland authors prove popular as library reveals most borrowed list
LOCAL authors were among the library’s top performers for the year, with Shetland Library announcing its most read books of 2025.
Malachy Tallack’s That Beautiful Atlantic Waltz took top spot for physical loans in the Shetland section, closely followed by Marianne Brown’s The Shetland Way and Jen Hadfield’s Storm Pegs.
However, all three also had eBook and eAudio loans which, if added, would see Hadfield top the list for the most popular Shetland book of the year.
In fact, loans for Storm Pegs even beat We Solve Murders by bestselling author Richard Osman, who was top of the general fiction loans.
Brown, maintaining a strong second place with her exploration of attitudes to the Viking wind farm, thanked readers for “taking an interest in the book”.
“The varying topics of the top three reads, all with a local connection, shows how the library can cater for a range of tastes,” she added.
Two other Shetland books which did very well, despite not being published until halfway through the year, were An Imposter in Shetland by Marsali Taylor and Vod by Christine de Luca.
Finding Hildasay by Chris Lewis was top of general non-fiction for the third year in a row, with a much older book The Living Mountain by Nan Shepherd in second place and Ken Smith’s The Way of the Hermit in third.
A fiction book lending well was Muckle Flugga by Michael Pedersen, who visited Shetland last year.
In the adult fiction chart books popular with book groups performed well, including Beautiful Ugly by Alice Feeney and Lessons in Chemistry by Bonnie Garmus, which has stayed high in the chart for several years.
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Also starting to loan well, Shetland Library said, is crime author Vaseem Khan who is coming to next year’s Shetland Noir festival.
eAudio continues to grow in popularity, the library added, with Freida McFadden’s The Housemaid – which has just been released as a movie – in first place.
Junior fiction continues to be dominated by Jeff Kinney and picture books by Julia Donaldson – The Gruffalo, an enduring favourite, is number one picture book.
Library manager Karen Fraser said it was always interesting to sort through their most borrowed lists.
“I think the popularity of eAudio means that some people are finding time to read more books than they might otherwise, and I am not surprised that audio boosted loans for Jen, Malachy and Marianne – they narrated their own books and did so very beautifully,” she said.
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