As 2021 comes to an end we are looking back at what you lovely people have borrowed, downloaded, read and listened to over the last 12 months.

So much like a rather popular music download app we have done a round up of some top fives over different categories, see how many you can tick off or add to your reading list for 2022

Most Reserved Book 2021  

 The Thursday Murder Club – Richard Osman

In a peaceful retirement village, four unlikely friends meet up once a week to investigate unsolved murders. But when a brutal killing takes place on their very doorstep, the Thursday Murder Club find themselves in the middle of their first live case. 

 

 Most Recommended by You 

 Shuggie Bain – Douglas Stewart

It is 1981. Glasgow is dying and good families must grift to survive. Agnes Bain has always expected more from life. She dreams of greater things: a house with its own front door and a life bought and paid for outright (like her perfect, but false, teeth). But Agnes is abandoned by her philandering husband, and soon she and her three children find themselves trapped in a decimated mining town. As she descends deeper into drink, the children try their best to save her, yet one by one they must abandon her to save themselves. It is her son Shuggie who holds out hope the longest. Shuggie is different. Fastidious and fussy, he shares his mother’s sense of snobbish propriety. The miners’ children pick on him and adults condemn him as no’ right. But Shuggie believes that if he tries his hardest, he can be normal like the other boys and help his mother escape this hopeless place.

 

Most Listened to

A Song For the Dark Times – Iain Rankin

From the iconic Number One bestseller Ian Rankin, comes one of the must-listen to books of the year. When his daughter Samantha calls in the dead of night, John Rebus knows it’s not good news. Her husband has been missing for two days. Rebus fears the worst – and knows from his lifetime in the police that his daughter will be the prime suspect. He wasn’t the best father – the job always came first – but now his daughter needs him more than ever. But is he going as a father or a detective? 

 Top Adult eBooks

  1. The Thursday Murder Club – Richard Osman
  2. Skins and Bones – Tom Bale
  3. The Midnight Library – Matt Haig
  4. Find Them Dead – Peter James
  5. Klara and the Sun – Kazuo Ishiguro

 

Top Adult Non-Fiction

  1. The Wild Silence – Raynor Winn
  2. Wilding – Isabella Tree
  3. The boy, the mole, the fox, the horse – Charlie Mackesy
  4. The Body: a guide to occupants – Bill Bryson
  5. Veg – Jamie Oliver

 Top Junior eBooks/eAudio

  1. Harry Potter and the Philospoher’s Stone
  2. Fetch-22
  3. Cat-Kid Comic Club
  4. The World’s Worst Parents
  5. Big Nate Makes a Splash

 

Top Genres

  • Crime/Mystery (of course!)
  • Thriller/Suspense
  • Historical
  • Family Saga
  • Romance

 

All East Sussex Libraries will be closed 1-3 January, reopening on Tuesday 4 January. You can still download and reserve books on our website throughout the festive period.