The Most Popular Books In US Public Libraries in 2025

What’s especially notable this year is that books published in 2024 that have garnered some acclaim, been in a celebrity book club, or had news of a movie adaptation have ranked among the most popular books in America. This is not surprising. And you’ll also appreciate access to e-books that help us distribute these in-demand titles to more patrons. For popular books, e-books are much more expensive for libraries than the print version, but additional e-books can often be purchased faster than the print version. You can see this by looking at this Next The fall of one of the largest print distributors to public libraries went bankrupt this fall, prompting a roundup of the year’s most popular books.

Other interesting trends this year include the inclusion of genre novels among the most popular titles. These are library staples, but often overlooked in non-library “best of” lists. Titles from long-standing authors with huge fan followings appear on these lists, such as David Baldacci and Louise Penny. This year, popular BookTok authors like Rebecca Jarosz and Frieda McFadden also moved up the rankings. On the other hand, only one library had titles by Sarah J. Maas among the libraries with the highest circulation, a change from recent years.

While these lists tend to be dominated by white authors, the overall list of the 40 libraries surveyed is more diverse than just the top ones. Of course, this reflects the fact that the publishing industry is still a white-dominated industry, and the books that tend to receive the most significant advertising and marketing are those by white authors. It’s also worth mentioning here that some of the biggest genre authors have been around for many years, and it can be difficult to top the most-circulated list as a new genre author. Again, that doesn’t mean they aren’t here or in circulation in libraries. That means they’re not at their best.

The good news is that when authors of color see their books promoted and praised, that attention is reflected back to their libraries. What is one of the most circulated titles this year? james Written by Percival Everett. Although it fell short of this year’s most borrowed title, James McBride’s tenchi grocery store This year, it also made it onto some of the most circulated lists.

Another factor to consider when looking at these lists is the role played by the library e-book digital platform itself. Some collections have more copies of a particular title than others, allowing you to check out more of that title. For example, hoopla allows many library users to borrow titles at the same time, so when something is popular, more people can access it at once than through a service like Libby (this is one reason why hoopla has become financially unsustainable for libraries, especially in the last year). Similarly, whatever books are promoted on digital platforms through book lists or reading lists (what to read if you like a particular title or movie) can influence what people rent. It was interesting to look through hundreds of the most popular titles and see some surprises emerge on the “Top Ebooks” checkout list. However, the top print and e-book checkouts have been combined into one list, as shown below.

Whether it’s a major metropolitan library, a mid-sized suburban library, or a small rural library, we show you what Americans were picking up across the country in 2025, based on a list of 40 different public libraries.

Most Popular Fiction in U.S. Public Libraries in 2025

This list includes a combination of e-books and print books. Some libraries create separate lists of their top checkouts, but even those separate lists have a lot of crossover (women For example, Kristin Hanna’s work was both in the same library). It makes sense to classify them into the broader “fiction” category. Only two libraries had a separate “genre” list in the summary. Those titles were not included. This only reflects the top list of mixed fiction genres. The following is for adult fiction only and does not include YA books, which are featured on numerous lists as being among the most distributed. sunrise of the reaping Written by Suzanne Collins, was on 4 lists.