Every year, the Ottawa Public Library releases a list of its most popular books based on the number of hold requests.
This year’s list says plenty about where and how people are getting their book recommendations. According to the OPL’s Content Services team, TikTok is a prominent pusher of books (you’ve probably already seen the “Big on TikTok” displays at Indigo). Many authors on the list, like Colleen Hoover and Taylor Jenkins Reid, got boosts from TikTok. The OPL also notes that “LGBT inclusion is an ongoing theme” in Teen’s fiction, and alongside TikTok, books that have been turned into TV shows on streaming services are favoured as well.
Ottawa Public Library (OPL) presents the most requested books of 2022. The annual lists for adults, teens and kids are curated based on the number of hold requests made at OPL, between January 1 and December 1, 2022. pic.twitter.com/P1F7a8tiQz
— OttPubLib/BibPubOtt (@opl_bpo) December 20, 2022
Adult (English)
- Where the Crawdads Sing by Delia Owens
- The Maid by Nita Prose
- The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo by Taylor Jenkins Reid
- Five Little Indians by Michelle Good
- It Ends with Us by Colleen Hoover
- Reminders of Him by Colleen Hoover
- Verity by Colleen Hoover
- Lessons in Chemistry by Bonnie Garmus
- Atomic Habits by James Clear
- The Midnight Library by Matt Haig
Teen (English)
- A Good Girl’s Guide to Murder by Holly Jackson
- Heartstopper – Volume 1 by Alice Oseman
- The Inheritance Games by Jennifer Lynn Barnes
- The Summer I Turned Pretty by Jenny Han
- They Both Die at the End by Adam Silvera
- A Court of Thorns and Roses by Sarah J. Maas
- One of Us Is Lying by Karen M. McManus
- Six of Crows by Leigh Bardugo
- The Hawthorne Legacy by Jennifer Lynn Barnes
- Good Girl, Bad Blood by Holly Jackson
Francophone readers, on the other hand, seem to be pulling their favourite books from institutions like the Nobel Prize and Tout le monde en parle. Annie Erneaux, who takes the sixth and seventh spot on the list, won the Nobel Prize for Literature this year. In fact, most of the French literary prizes went to women this year, according to the OPL, and those laureates are well-represented on the OPL’s list.
Adult (French)
- Tiohtiàke by Michel Jean
- Mille secrets mille dangers by Àlain Farah
- Là où je me terre by Caroline Dawson
- Vivre vite by Brigitte Giraud
- Dans le ventre du Condo by Blaise Ndala
- Les années by Annie Ernaux
- Le jeune homme by Annie Ernaux
- Le pays des autres : Première partie, La guerre, la guerre, la guerre by Leila Slimani
- Femme forêt by Anaïs Barbeau-Lavalette
- L’affaire Alaska Sanders by Joël Dicker
For more information about OPL’s most popular books of 2022, click here.
