Books The borrowers!

Is it just children using the library these days? Donal O’Donoghue ponders the lists of most borrowed books in Ireland

In the Dublin library where I worked in the 1980s, books most likely to ‘disappear’ were kept at close quarters behind the main desk. The titles of these popular tomes are long forgotten but the subjects included the practise of martial arts, caring for certain breeds of dog (German Shepherd and Doberman Pinscher being especially attractive) and anything to do with family planning (illustrations being a bonus). These in-demand titles suffered for their popularity, broken down by constant borrowing, missing pages, images and sometimes whole chapters. Yet they limped on, patched up for a public hungry to learn about the art of a roundhouse kick or the house-minding ability of a Doberman. Or so we were told.

Last week, Libraries Ireland published details of the most borrowed books of 2018. There wasn’t an attack dog or a Bruce Lee among them (I think). Indeed all of the Top 20 titles were children’s books with Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone top of the heap (J K Rowling’s schoolboy sorcerer featured a number of times in the list, as did a number of books by David Walliams, Jeff Kinney and Roald Dahl). This trend continued for most borrowed authors, with James Patterson the only non-children’s writer in the shake-up – although the wags might argue that the prolific Mr Patterson’s prose is probably written by a child.

With children’s books dominating the lists for the past decade and more (Jeff Kinney’s Wimpy Kid ruled that era), Libraries Ireland decided this year to create new Adult categories for Borrowed and Author. Unsurprisingly, Patterson topped the latter with Solar Bones by Mike McCormack in pole position for most borrowed book. McCormack’s novel, a brilliantly evocative account of a crucial day in the life of a civil engineer, was unexpected technically it is just a single sentence unspooling a life. If you’ve not read it, get down to your local library now and hope that it hasn’t been borrowed by somebody else.

Or maybe ask to see the special stash that’s being held behind the main desk.