Public Library Lending Chart: Child nears finishing Line with Reacher

For the year to date, Lee Child is once again the author of the most borrowed book in the Nielsen LibScan charts. The Midnight Line, his 22nd Jack Reacher title, has been lent 22,499 times in 2018 so far. Its predecessor, Night School (the most-borrowed book of 2017), continued to prove popular with the UK’s library-goers, scoring fifth place, and No Middle Name, the author’s collection of Reacher short stories, took 18th.

Child is on course to top the annual LibScan charts for a third year running with a Reacher title. Since 2010, only Transworld stablemate Paula Hawkins and The Girl on the Train have broken his duck as most-loaned book come year’s-end—and it did so by a mere 1,000 loans.

Of the 20 most loaned books, 16 were part of a series. Perhaps slightly less-than-die-hard fans are content to borrow their favourite hard-boiled detective’s latest adventures from the library, rather than devoting entire IKEA bookshelves to a 22-part series. Dan Brown’s Origin, his fifth Robert Langdon title, was borrowed 15,781 times—good enough to claim second place—while shifting 276,761 copies in paperback since July in the
BookScan TCM. Michael Connelly’s Two Kinds of Truth and The Late Show charted third and ninth, with David Baldacci’s End Game, his fifth Will Robie title, in 10th place, with 13,135 loans.

Outside hard-boiled crime, Jojo Moyes’ third Me Before You book, Still Me, charted in 11th place, with 12,897 loans. Four of Jeff Kinney’s Wimpy Kid series, including 12th title The Getaway and début Diary of a Wimpy Kid, hit the top 20. All 12 titles in the series were in the top 50 most loaned books.
David Walliams’ Bad Dad, a standalone, charted seventh but both The World’s Worst Children and The World’s Worst Children 2, the first two titles of his short-story trilogy, hit 16th and 17th, within 218 loans of one another. (The final title, The World’s Worst Children 3, hit 266th place, loaned 5,568
times since the end of May.)

Despite Kinney’s dominance at the top of the LibScan charts, he actually falls short of Walliams’ loans for the year to date by 50,429 units—Walliams,
with illustrators Quentin Blake and Tony Ross, has been loaned 214,202 times in 2018, compared to Kinney’s 163,773. The Brit is fifth in the Most Loaned Authors ranking, with Kinney five places below, in 10th. This comes down to strength in depth. While Kinney has 76 separate editions in his 12-part Wimpy Kid series that count towards his loans tally, Walliams—with both his children’s fiction and picture books— has 121 editions in the LibScan charts. And it’s strength in depth that matters in the Most Loaned Authors ranking, as evidenced by the vice-like grip Julia Donaldson (701 titles) and James Patterson (805) have on the top two places.

The LibScan chart was once again a boys’ club—just three female authors charted in the top 20, with Moyes the highest in 11th place, Hawkins’ The Girl on the Train follow-up Into the Water in 13th place, and Ann Cleeves’ The Seagull in 20th. Gail Honeyman’s Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine—which has sold more than 700,000 copies in paperback through the TCM this year—is in 51st place, with 9,128 loans in 2018. But Eleanor performed better than the most loaned non-fiction title: Jamie Oliver’s 5 Ingredients claimed 305th place, with 5,249 loans in 2018.

Date Range: Year to 6th October 2018. Source: Nielsen LibScan