Most Borrowed of 2021

NEWS

What does the list reveal about members’ reading habits?

Biographies, novels and titles from the History and Art section topped the list of books borrowed more than five times from the Library last year, and were among more than 50,000 loaned out in total in 2021.

Top of the most-borrowed list was Kazuo Ishiguro’s Booker longlisted Klara and the Sun (borrowed 16 times), closely followed by Philip Hoare’s lyrical study of the artist Albrecht Dürer, Albert and the Whale (borrowed 14 times) and Maggie O’Farrell’s novel Hamnet, a fictional account of Shakespeare’s son who died at age 11 (borrowed 13 times). In fourth place – and the top biography – is volume one of Henry ‘Chips’ Channon: The Diaries, edited by Simon Heffer, and described as “weapons-grade above-stairs gossip” by Ben Macintyre in The Times (borrowed 11 times).

With 10 borrows each, Paula Byrne’s The Adventures of Miss Barbara Pym, Sathnam Sanghera’s Empireland and Marina Warner’s autobiography Inventory of a Life Mislaid tied in fifth place. Honourable mention must also be made of latecomers – the “Flying Off the Shelf Award” goes to David Kynaston’s On the Cusp: Days of ’62, the latest in his series of wide-ranging histories of postwar Britain, which was taken out no fewer than nine times since its arrival in the Library in September, placing it as one of the six most-borrowed titles of the year. •

The full list of books borrowed more than five times in 2021 can be found at londonlibrary.co.uk/ most-borrowed-books-2021