‘Crime/ Thriller’ is Colliers Wood Library’s most popular section currently, alongside General Fiction and Children's Fiction including Picture books.

Laura Tuck, Customer Experience Officer at Colliers Wood Library, commented ‘Here at the library, we find that Crime/Thriller is the most popular section with those types of books going out constantly on a daily basis.’

For this past month in particular the top 10 authors at Colliers Wood Library have been:

  1. James Patterson
  2. Danielle Steel
  3. Michael Connelly
  4. Jeffrey Archer
  5. Harlan Coben
  6. Nikesh Shukla
  7. Sophie Hannah
  8. Adele Parks
  9. Jo Nesbo
  10. Ian Rankin

And the top 10 most popular titles were:

  1. Heads you win by Jeffrey Archer
  2. Worst case by James Patterson
  3. The one who wrote destiny by Nikesh Shukla
  4. Dark sacred night by Michael Connelly
  5. Young wives’ tales by Adele Parks
  6. Day of the dead by Nicci French
  7. Closed casket by Sophie Hannah
  8. In a house of lies by Ian Rankin
  9. The time of my life by Cecelia Ahern
  10. A nest of vipers by Andrea Camilleri

Libraries are great resources, allowing people to carry out research and read beyond their horizons. They boost education for local people, but also play an important role in our communities. There are 3,618 public libraries in the UK, issuing almost 183 books a year and we make approximately 133 million visits to the library each year. [1]

Brian Ashley, director of the Libraries Arts Council England, stressed their importance to local people in a recent report: ‘Libraries have a local presence and may contribute to a sense of place. Then there are the beneficial effects of services accessed in a library whether that be a social reading club, support to quit smoking, or help looking for jobs online.’ [2]

In March 2015 a study by Simetrica and Arts Council England found that libraries can positively affect our health and wellbeing with library use being ‘associated with higher life satisfaction, higher happiness and a higher sense of purpose in life’, and that, based on the ‘reductions in GP visits caused by this improvement in health … it is possible to aggregate NHS cost savings across the library-using English population to estimate an average cost saving of £27.5 million per year.’ [3]

However, there has been a recent decline in library use across the UK, according to a Carnegie report [4], and only around ½ of people in England are library users. Library use is lowest among over 55s whilst 15 to 24 year olds are the most frequent users, and manual workers or non-working people visit the library less, so many are missing out on the benefits these local treasure troves bring.

More than 70% of people surveyed in England believe that libraries are important to their communities, and as they are highly valued by the public, library enthusiasts are considering ways to attract more people to their local libraries. The survey found that 46% of people would be more likely to visit the library if the range and quality of books was improved, and more than half would like to see libraries offering more events. Many would also like to be able to access online systems to search for or reserve books, or would be attracted by an extension of the time period that the library is open.

So, if you are overdue a good read, check out your local library and enjoy the great reading resources our local areas provide us.