WHAT CITY READ, 2020
Authors Michelle Obama, Kendi were popular with N.Y.ers seeking inspiration
New Yorkers on lockdown found more time to read in 2020, and the books they most often turned to were those that offered perspective, comfort and hope, according to a new list of top library checkouts.
Until they can turn the page on this paralyzing pandemic, residents from Astoria to Alphabet City have been absorbing books that are as diverse as the city, with titles addressing everything from social justice to isolation.
The top titles were primarily borrowed digitally because COVID-19 restrictions forced most branches in the city’s three library systems to temporarily close in mid-March.
After a lockdown that nearly closed the book on borrowing, branches of the New York Public Library, the Queens Public Library and the Brooklyn Public Library began to open their doors in July, with limited grab-and-go services and safety guidelines in effect.
“Our list suggests that readers in Queens, the epicenter of the pandemic when it first came to New York City, needed comfort and escape during one of the darkest periods our communities have ever experienced,” said Queens Public Library President Dennis Walcott. “People turned to popular titles and authors to keep them connected to the familiar while struggling with so many unknowns.”
At the top of the Queens list was a John Grisham thriller, “The Guardians,” which follows a minister’s campaign to free a Death Row inmate.
“How to Be an Antiracist” by Ibram X. Kendi was tops in Brooklyn, while “The Vanishing Half,” Brit Bennett’s novel about the racial paths of Black twin sisters, was borrowed most often in the New York Public Library, which serves Manhattan, the Bronx and Staten Island.
Michelle Obama’s memoir “Becoming” was the only book that showed up on all three library system’s lists.
Several books from the lists were featured on The New York Public Library’s Black Liberation Reading List. That collection was curated by the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture in Harlem with the goal of celebrating and fostering a better understanding of the Black experience.
“While the top titles are as diverse as the communities we serve, I am inspired to see that, in a year when basic facts were sometimes questioned, so many turned to libraries, trusted sources of knowledge, to enhance their understanding of current events and the social justice issues that continue to plague our nation,” said New York Public Library President Anthony Marx.
Children and teens got in on the book borrowing action, too. Top titles in those genres included “Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone” by J.K. Rowling and “American Royals” by Katharine McGee.