On the lists of most-popular books of 2022 at the Greater Victoria Public Library, some titles are holdovers, some are unexpected and some are spurred by movies and social media
“One of the surprising things is that there’s quite a number of titles that are repeats from last year,” said Rachel Rogers, the GVPL’s collections and technical-services co-ordinator. “I think it speaks to how book conversations are happening, there’s a lot of word of mouth, a lot of sharing of titles and that sort of thing.”
The No. 1 adult fiction title in 2022, Where the Crawdads Sing, was published in 2018 and has been on the GVPL’s top-10 list for adult fiction for the past three years.
“This time it hit No. 1, I think because the movie came out,” Rogers said.
Others returning to the adult fiction list from 2021 are State of Terror, a novel about a fledgling secretary of state, by Hillary Rodham Clinton and Louise Penny, and Five Little Indians by Michelle Good.
Repeats on the non-fiction list include Atomic Habits, a self-help book by James Clear, Finding the Mother Tree, a book about trees and nature by Vancouver author Suzanne Simard and Braiding Sweetgrass, a series of nature essays that ties in Indigenous storytelling by Robin Wall Kimmerer.
Also put out by the GVPL, as well as the Vancouver Island Regional Library, are the top-10 teen/young adult and children’s books. The VIRL has separate lists of ebooks and digital audiobooks, as well.
Topping the VIRL adult fiction list is The Madness of Crowds by Louise Penny, with only State of Terror and Five Little Indians overlapping the GVPL titles. Where the Crawdads Sing was not on the VIRL list at all.
Rogers sees some common threads among the titles from the GVPL, which has 12 locations in 10 communities.
“I think the big trend is how much of an impact BookTalk and other social media is having on reading habits,” she said. “It’s just having a massive impact on reading. There’s a number of books that are coming back into consciousness because they’re being talked about on TikTok.”
BookTalk is a book-discussion option on Tiktok.
A prime example of the influence of social media from the GVPL adult fiction top-10 is It Ends With Us by Colleen Hoover, which came out in 2016.
“She exploded this year,” Rogers said.
Social media “is putting books out there for other people to find,” she said.
Rogers said that social media is guiding many people trying to decide what book to read next.
Titles borrowed from print, ebooks and audiobooks are all part of the GVPL tallies, she said, with some such as The Girl in His Shadow by Audrey Blake taking its place on the adult fiction almost exclusively due to ebooks and audiobooks.
One notable omission from the top-10 non-fiction list was The Light We Carry: Overcoming in Uncertain Times, the latest book from Michelle Obama.
“I think that’s just from when it was released, it was the end of November,” Rogers said. “I feel confident it’s going to show up next year.”
She said that the 2021 non-fiction list is the first in four years that hasn’t had a title from Michelle Obama or Barack Obama.
Heartstopper Vol. 1, a romance-themed graphic novel by Alice Oseman, is on the GVPL’s top-10 teen list and owes some of its popularity to Netflix, Rogers said, as does Shadow and Bone by Leigh Bardugo.
“The teen list is really pushed by Netflix adaptations. It’s book-to-movie adaptations generally, but the Netflix ones seem to really catch attention.”
Many teen books are high-action and fast-paced and can make good fodder for movie productions, Rogers said.
One place where there are usually few surprises is the top-10 list for kids, she said, because a lot of popular children’s authors put out a new title each year and attract a consistent following.
“One thing that is interesting is we’re seeing a trend for graphic-novel adaptations of kids’ books.”
Among those are books from the Babysitters Club series and the Wings of Fire series.
The popularity and vibrancy of the lists are positive indicators for libraries, Rogers said.
“Like every library we saw that dip during the pandemic, and we’re growing again.”
The GVPL’s highest-circulation year was 2018 with 6,580,896 items borrowed.
The indicators are encouraging, Rogers said.
“I think it’s exciting because it not only shows people are still using the library but also just how much variety there is out there being published.”
Rogers said people in Greater Victoria have traditionally been fond of mysteries, but things are getting more varied when it comes to adult fiction.
“We had a couple of thrillers, we had a couple of historical fictions, we had a romance title.”
Full lists are on the web at gvpl.ca and virl.bc.ca.
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