Public libraries are hard at work throughout the year supplying local bookworms with spaces to lose themselves in the "ancient" magic of paperback entertainment.
Despite the growing popularity of e-books and audiobooks, print still accounted for 65% of the publishing market in 2023. Once a title has gone through its bookstore shelf life, libraries can serve as a second home for the literary babies in search of a fresh set of reading hands.
With extended hours among 11 Denver Public Library branches, Denverites have made good use of their local institutions to peruse through the next great romance novel.
All DPL locations will be closed Monday, Jan. 1, in observance of the New Year's Day holiday but you can still access many of their online resources, including audio book and e-book versions, or get your library card leading up to 2024.
Before we get to the list, here are three takeaways from what Denverites read in 2023:
Two memoirs: Prince Harry and Jennette McCurdy
Two popular memoirs landed on this year's top 10 list.
The ever-growing chasm between Prince Harry and the monarchy captivated the hearts and minds of the masses in 2023. The memoir was ghostwritten by American journalist J. R. Moehringer, who once worked at the Rocky Mountain News and contributed to Andre Agassi and Nike founder Phil Knight's memoirs. Prince Harry's "Spare" spilled a lot of royal tea on the secretive royal family, like the allegation that his older brother, Prince William, physically attacked him or that he begged his father, Prince Charles, not to marry Camilla Parker Bowles.
Based on her one-woman show and detailing the struggles of growing up a famous Nickelodeon child actor, Jennette McCurdy's memoir "I'm Glad My Mom Died" unpacks a difficult relationship with her abusive mother who died of cancer in 2013. The book sold over 2 million copies and landed her in TIME's 100 Next list in 2022.
Women-authors lead the list and Colleen Hoover snags two spots
Nine of the ten books are authored by women, including popular romance and young adult fiction writer Colleen Hoover who snagged two spots of her own.
"Verity" is a 2018 standalone psychological romance thriller about the discovery of an unreleased autobiography full of bone-chilling admissions.
"It Starts With Us" is a contemporary romance, new adult fiction novel that was a sequel to Hoover's 2016 best-selling novel "It Ends With Us." The sequel was so highly anticipated that it became Simon & Schuster's most pre-ordered title in its 98-year history.
The list also features Bonnie Garmus' "Lessons in Chemistry," a historical fiction novel about a chemist turned television chef and focuses on the lives, careers and struggle for women's empowerment in the late 50s and early 60s.
A nonfiction outlier by an Indigenous botanist
Aside from the two memoirs, the only other nonfiction title in the list is by Potawatomi professor Robin Wall Kimmerer titled "Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge and the Teachings of Plants." Published in 2013, the book is centered on the role of Indigenous knowledge as an alternative or complementary approach to Western mainstream scientific methodologies. Asking readers to consider how they view and treat the natural world and now translated into nearly 20 languages, the book reached the New York Times bestseller list in 2020, six years after initial publication.
Here are the 10 most checked out Denver Public Library books in 2023:
- "Lessons in Chemistry": a novel by Bonnie Garmus
- "Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow": a novel by Gabrielle Zevin
- "Spare: Prince Harry The Duke of Sussex"
- "I'm Glad My Mom Died" by Jennette McCurdy
- "The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo": a novel by Taylor Jenkins Reid
- "Fourth Wing" by Rebecca Yaros
- "Verity" by Colleen Hoover
- "It Starts with Us": a novel by Colleen Hoover
- "Happy Place" by Emily Henry
- "Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge and the Teachings of Plants" by Robin Wall Kimmerer
