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Hot vax summer never really took off, so what did people in DC do instead? They read books, apparently! The DC Public Library’s exhaustive list of its most popular titles for 2021 holds only a slight resemblance to last year’s list, which suggests that District readers kept searching for new works to plow through while waiting—apparently in vain—for life to return to normal-ish.
Local author Barack Obama’s year-old A Promised Land was the second-most-checked-out nonfiction book this year. He shared that list with several authors who have connections to the Washington area, including Isabel Wilkerson, Glennon Doyle, and Robert Kolker.
Top 10 Nonfiction Books
1. Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents by Isabel Wilkerson
2. A Promised Land by Barack Obama
3. Untamed by Glennon Doyle
4. Hidden Valley Road: Inside the Mind of an American Family by Robert Kolker
5. Maybe You Should Talk to Someone: A Therapist, Her Therapist, and Our Lives Revealed by Lori Gottlieb
6. The Splendid and the Vile: A Saga of Churchill, Family and Defiance During the Blitz by Erik Larson
7. The Warmth of Other Suns: The Epic Story of America’s Great Migration by Isabel Wilkerson
8. How to do Nothing: Resisting the Attention Economy by Jenny Odell
9. Say Nothing: A True Story of Murder and Memory in Northern Ireland by Patrick Radden Keefe
10. Educated: A Memoir by Tara Westover
Top 10 Fiction Books
1. The Vanishing Half by Brit Bennett
2. The Midnight Library by Matt Haig
3. Anxious People: A Novel by Fredrik Backman
4. Transcendent Kingdom by Yaa Gyasi
5. Such a Fun Age: A Novel by Kiley Reid
6. Dog Man. Fetch-22 by Dav Pilkey
7. Mexican Gothic by Silvia Moreno-Garcia
8. Hamnet: A Novel of the Plague by Maggie O’Farrell
9. Klara and the Sun by Kazuo Ishiguro
10. Dog Man. Mothering Heights by Dav Pilkey
Top 10 Fiction Audiobooks
1. The Vanishing Half: A Novel by Brit Bennett
2. Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets by J. K. Rowling
3. American Dirt: A Novel by Jeanine Cummins
4. Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban by J. K. Rowling
5. The Water Dancer: A Novel by Ta-Nehisi Coates
6. Anxious People: A Novel by Fredrik Backman
7. The Four Winds: A Novel by Kristin Hannah
8. The Midnight Library by Matt Haig
9. Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone by J. K. Rowling (Tied)
9. Malibu Rising by Taylor Jenkins Reid (Tied)
10. The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison (Tied)
10. The Dutch House: A Novel by Ann Patchett (Tied)
10. The Nickel Boys: A Novel by Colson Whitehead (Tied)
Top 10 Fiction eBooks
1. The Vanishing Half: A Novel by Brit Bennett
2. The Guest List: A Novel by Lucy Foley
3. The Midnight Library: A Novel by Matt Haig
4. Anxious People: A Novel by Fredrik Backman
5. The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue by V. E. Schwab
6. Such a Fun Age by Kiley Reid
7. Bridgerton Collection by Julia Quinn
8. The Searcher: A Novel by Tana French
9. Mexican Gothic by Silvia Moreno-Garcia
10. American Dirt: A Novel by Jeanine Cummins
Top 10 Fiction eAudiobooks</…….