(Bookish) News Bites
A look at literary news, in brief
The RPL’s “Most Borrowed” list drops
On Dec. 23, the Regina Public Library (RPL) released their “most borrowed 2024” list. The list tracks ten top circulating books in six categories and the single top circulating book club in a bag.
Britney Spears’ memoir, the Woman in Me, topped both the nonfiction and audiobook categories. According to the New York Times, Spears’ memoir was collectively authored. An anonymous source told the New York Times that “three writers – all successful authors in their own right – made significant contributions.”
Other categories, the “Teen” category in particular boast an interesting top three. According to Hallee Mandryk, a journalist at CTVNews, “RPL staff explained that 2024 saw many young people looking to get into reading more.”
The RPL’s “Teen” category was topped by an Ali Hazelwood book, Check & Mate, which was followed by two texts with dystopian themes: The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes, and Throne of Glass.
Two of the adult categories (nonfiction and audiobooks) listed Spears’ book – a memoir about a woman’s life under an exploitative conservatorship – as their #1 most circulated book, while the young-adult category’s top three was similarly monolithic: two of three books involved young women living in oppressive or otherwise dystopian societies.
Archer Library Award applications open soon
Since 2012, the Dr. John Archer Library Award has been given to “the student with the best written and most compelling reflective library essay.” $1,000 is awarded to the student with the winning essay.
According to the Dr. John Archer Library’s website, students can apply through SAMS at the beginning of the winter semester. Applications close on Feb. 1, and each application must include an application form, a “500 word reflective essay,” a copy of the “previously graded research project,” being submitted for consideration and a “signed and dated memo from [the] professor who graded [the] research project.”
The award’s 2024 marking rubric is publicly available on the Dr. John Archer Library’s website.
