#LCPL wrapped

[lakecountylibrary]

LCPL WRAPPED 2024

Ok DON'T PANIC, this post is still true - it just broke containment a bit so we don't know how many people saw the original tags and might therefore be a little concerned to see THIS post.

We don't know what you, personally, checked out.

We have to track total circulation stats to make sure we're doing our job correctly and keeping a healthy collection (and to defend our budget), but these stats are anonymous!

Is one person responsible for every single One Piece check out? Is James Patterson artificially inflating his numbers by visiting our library constantly? Who knows! The only thing we know is that kids(?) really, really like Jeff Kinney books.

And so without further ado, here are the most checked-out items of 2024:

Want to compare to 2023? Here's 2023 wrapped

(ID: Images are lists of books; each list is typed out in the post under the image. /ID)

Most Checked-Out Adult Books:

Adult Fiction:

James Patterson was #3 last year, too, though with a different book.

1: The Women by Kristin Hannah 2: First Lie Wins by Ashley Elston 3: The #1 Lawyer by James Patterson 4: A Calamity of Souls by David Baldacci 5: The Exchange by John Grisham

Adult Nonfiction:

Prince Harry and Matthew Perry dropped a rank from 2023 to make way for Britney!

1: The Woman in Me by Britney Spears 2: Spare by Prince Harry 3: Friends, Lovers, and the Big Terrible Thing by Matthew Perry 4: The Demon of Unrest by Erik Larson 5: I'm Glad My Mom Died by Jennette McCurdy

Adult eBooks & eAudiobooks:

Format doesn't matter - people were reading The Women however they could!

1: The Women by Kristin Hannah 2: Fourth Wing by Rebecca Yarros 3: Iron Flame by Rebecca Yarros 4: Funny Story by Emily Henry 5: First Lie Wins by Ashley Elston

Most Checked-Out YA Books:

Teen Fiction:

Welcome back reigning champ Suzanne Collins!

1: The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins 2: The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes by Suzanne Collins 3: Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire by J.K. Rowling 4: Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone by J.K. Rowling 5: Catching Fire by Suzanne Collins

Teen eBooks & eAudiobooks:

Major gains from Sarah J. Maas in this format - she didn't make the list with teens last year!

1: Throne of Glass by Sarah J. Maas 2: If He Had Been With Me by Laura Nowlin 3: The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes by Suzanne Collins 4: Powerless by Lauren Roberts 5: Crown of Midnight by Sarah J Maas

Teen Manga:

This is the first year we're sharing the top check-outs in this category!

1: One Piece by Eiichiro Oda 2: Bleach by Tite Kubo 3: Skip Beat! by Yoshiki Nakamura 4: Naruto by Masashi Kishimoto 5: My Hero Academia by Kōhei Horikoshi

Most Checked-Out Kids' Books:

Kids' Fiction:

AKA Mr. Kinney's House

1: No Brainer by Jeff Kinney 2: Diper Överlöde by Jeff Kinney 3: Diary of a Wimpy Kid by Jeff Kinney 4: Big Shot by Jeff Kinney 5: Rowley Jefferson's Awesome Friendly Spooky Stories by Jeff Kinney

Kids' Graphic Novels:

Return of Babymouse! It was popular in 2022 but didn't rank in 2023. (Though, we also didn't separate out kids' graphic novels in 2023.)

1: Babymouse by Jennifer L. Holm & Matthew Holm 2: Wings of Fire by Tui T. Sutherland 3: Dog Man: The Scarlet Shredder by Dav Pilkey 4: Cat Kid Comic Club: Influencers by Dav Pilkey 5: Dog Man: Twenty Thousand Fleas Under the Sea by Dav Pilkey

Kids' eBooks & eAudiobooks:

Rick Riordan with the steel chair?? I suspect we have Disney to thank for this revival.

1: The Lightning Thief by Rick Riordan 2: Claudia and the Bad Joke by Ann M. Martin 3: Twenty Thousand Fleas Under the Sea by Dav Pilkey 4: Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone by J.K. Rowling 5: No Brainer by Jeff Kinney

[with-my-murder-flute]

Nile Military notes

If you don’t know your Privates from your Generals but you want to write about Nile’s military service anyway.

The US military has five branches: Army, Navy, Air Force, Marines, and Coast Guard. When you “join the military” in the USA, you have to pick one of those five branches and apply to it specifically. Nile was in the United States Marine Corps, also known as the USMC. Soldiers are specifically members of the Army, which is a different thing. The Marines are a very combat-focused branch--every Marine has to be able to use a rifle, while most military organizations only train maybe 1 person in combat to 9 people who are never expected to hold a gun (cooks, drivers, mechanics, engineers, medics, barbers, administrative personnel, etc.)

Therefore Marines are really proud of being Marines, not soldiers, because they consider themselves superior to the other branches. There’s a friendly rivalry between different parts of the military. The US military branches tend to work on their own a lot instead of interweaving on a daily basis within units like other countries’--the US Navy has airplanes, the US Army has boats, and the US Air Force has humvees--but the Marines are most used to working with the Navy.

Why would Nile join the US military, which is deeply problematic and imperialist? I’d suggest that three big reasons are, 1) She’s from a military family and her reservations and suspicions about the service would be different, though not less valid, than your average leftist civilian’s, 2) They provide a steady income and health insurance and are unlikely to fire you without warning, and 3) Even when you leave the service, you still get (crappy but free) healthcare and, if you last three years, free college tuition.

As a sidenote, Nile was born in 1994 and her father died when she was around 10; therefore he probably died serving in either Iraq or Afghanistan.

Nile is a Corporal, the fourth enlisted rank. Enlisted personnel are the people in the military who do most stuff--that’s compared to commissioned officers, who join with university educations and are immediately put in management positions over dozens of people. 

Corporal (Cpl) is a competitive rank to get to, and it’s the first Noncommissioned Officer (NCO) rank. (NCOs are like officers, but they do things in the field.) That means Nile has been a Marine for at least two years and shown aptitude and leadership potential, so she has been given command over a small team of 3-4 people. Her immediate boss is her Sergeant (Sgt); the ranks below her are Lance Corporal (LCpl), Private First Class (PFC) and Private (Pvt).

When you join the Marines, you make about $23,000 USD a year; that increases with experience, promotions, and kinds of service, so as a Corporal, Nile probably made about $32,000 USD a year.

Nile’s team are LCpl “Dizzy” Ali, who has dark straight hair that she keeps in a braid wrapped into a bun at the nape of her neck, LCpl Jordan “Jay” Burley, who keeps her hair buzzed short, and a Pashto translator credited as Gita who wears a shayla and does not carry a rifle, and might therefore be a civilian consultant instead of a Marine.

Nile, Dizzy, and Jay seem like they were very close friends before Nile’s weird death/not death. US military personnel are no longer prohibited from same-sex relationships or marriages, however, they are prohibited from forming romantic/sexual relationships within their chain of command. As Nile is their team leader, she would be harshly disciplined for having a relationship like that with either of them (or Gita). If you catch feelings for someone in your chain of command, you’re supposed to either keep it to yourself, or ask to be reassigned to another unit so you can date them, which is very rare to do in the middle of an overseas deployment because it’s seen as deserting/abandoning your teammates, who trust you with their lives.

Nile’s unit appears to be a Female Engagement Team (FET), a competitive assignment that she would have specifically volunteered for. FETs are units the US Military has used in Iraq and Afghanistan over the past couple decades; they’re teams of women who perform policing and security roles to help local law enforcement. As women, they’re considered more culturally suited to do security searches on women’s bodies, enter private women’s spaces during house searches, and provide friendly outreach with the local community. Technically this is not a “combat” duty because officially the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan are over. Technically it’s law enforcement help they have been requested to supply by the local government. On the other hand, I am not sure the civilians of Afghanistan feel this is a significant difference.

Nile probably has/had a house or apartment in the USA that wasn’t in Chicago, but was wherever her unit was based out of when they were Stateside--the biggest base is Camp Pendleton in Oceanside near San Diego, California, which is 100 miles from the air-ground combat training camp at Twentynine Palms California, and 400some miles from the mountain warfare training camp in Bridgeport, California.

[lakecountylibrary]

LCPL Wrapped: 2023

We waited until the very last moment of 2023 to gather our numbers, and now here they are! The most checked-out books of 2023!

Want to compare to 2022? Here's 2022 wrapped.

(Images are lists of books; each list is typed out in the post under the image.)

Top Adult Fiction:

Welcome back returning champ Jodi Picoult!

1: Mad Honey by Jodi Picoult and Jennifer Finney Boylan 2: It Starts With Us by Colleen Hoover 3: The House of Wolves by James Patterson and Mike Lupica 4: Identity by Nora Roberts 5: Without a Trace by Danielle Steel

Top Adult Nonfiction:

Novelty is the name of the game; none of these titles were on last year's list!

1: Spare by Prince Harry 2: Friends, Lovers, and the Big Terrible Thing by Matthew Perry 3: I'm Glad My Mom Died by Jenette McCurdy 4: The Light We Carry by Michelle Obama 5: Killers of the Flower Moon by David Grann

Top YA, Kids', and ebooks/audiobooks under the Read More ⬇️ Hit that jump to see where Suzanne Collins ended up this year, and find out which author walked away with an ENTIRE category!

Top Adult eBooks and eAudiobooks:

Welcome back returning champ Colleen Hoover!

1: It Starts With Us by Colleen Hoover 2: Verity by Colleen Hoover 3: It Ends With Us by Colleen Hoover 4: Happy Place by Emily Henry 5: Lessons in Chemistry by Bonnie Garmus

Top YA Print Books:

Suzanne Collins pulls into 1st and 2nd place over last year's 2nd and 3rd while Jenny Han holds steady at 5th!

1: The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins 2: The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes by Suzanne Collins 3: Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone by J.K. Rowling 4: Mockingjay by Suzanne Collins 5: The Summer I Turned Pretty by Jenny Han

Top YA eBooks and eAudiobooks:

Welcome back returning champ Jenny Han!

1: The Summer I Turned Pretty by Jenny Han 2: The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes by Suzanne Collins 3: A Good Girl's Guide to Murder by Holly Jackson 4: If He Had Been With Me by Laura Nowlin 5: It's Not Summer Without You by Jenny Han

Top Kids' Print Books:

AKA We Hope You're Pleased With Yourself, Mr. Kinney

1: Diper Överlöde by Jeff Kinney 2: Rowley Jefferson's Awesome Friendly Spooky Stories by Jeff Kinney 3: Big Shot by Jeff Kinney 4: Rowley Jefferson's Awesome Friendly Adventure by Jeff Kinney 5: Rodrick Rules by Jeff Kinney

Top Kids' eBooks and eAudiobooks:

Jeff Kinney's The Deep End pulls into 1st from last year's 4th!

1: The Deep End by Jeff Kinney 2: Mary Anne's Bad Luck Mystery by Ann M. Martin 3: Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone by J.K. Rowling 4: Diper Överlöde by Jeff Kinney 5: Twenty Thousand Fleas Under the Sea by Dav Pilkey

[lakecountylibrary]

Author Rec: Alice Hoffman

I recently listened to The Book of Magic, which is the fourth and final installment of the Practical Magic Series (yes, the movie was based on one of the books). I have listened to the whole series this year and I really enjoyed each book.

The characters and storyline are engaging, and I couldn't help but wonder what happens next as I finished each book. I highly recommend reading/listening to the whole series in the sequential order of events, and not in the order in which Hoffman wrote the novels

I recommend reading/listening to the series in the following order:

Magic Lessons (2020)

Rules of Magic (2017)

Practical Magic (1995)

The Book of Magic (2021)

The series begins with Maria Owens, a practitioner of the “unnamed art” who endured the witch trials of 1600s England. It follows the Owens women all the way through to present day. This series is historical fiction and fantasy all wrapped in one.

If magic and fantasy are not your cup of tea, you can still try an Alice Hoffman novel. I recommend The Museum of Extraordinary Things. It is again historical fiction, and tells the story of Coney Island at the turn of the twentieth century.

The book focuses on the people who were put on display for onlookers to marvel at what were considered abnormalities of the human body. The book is brutal and raw and stirs up the ugly side of humanity. It really made me think, and think hard about how people with disabilities and people with uncommon conditions are treated.

You can find the books mentioned here in regular, large print and audio format at LCPL. There are even eaudio and ebook downloads available for some titles.

And of course, the library also has the movie based on one of Hoffman's novels, Practical Magic, available for check-out.

See more of Brenna's recs