We were curious to learn just what Milwaukeeans were reading in 2016 so we reached out to the helpful folks at the Milwaukee Public Library. We asked about the most borrowed books of the year and they delivered. We also looked at what shoppers at Boswell Book Company purchased. Owner Daniel Goldin regularly reports on bestsellers, and he had already posted the nonfiction bestseller list for all of 2016, in addition to the annual fiction list, and children’s list for your reading pleasure. We can (loosely) deduce from these many local bookworms were most captivated by Matthew Desmond’s Evicted, which told a depressing tale of Milwaukee’s low-income renters, The Atlantic writer Ta-nehisi Coates’ National Book Award-winning work styled as a letter to his son, and tips from Marie Kondo on home organization. Here at Milwaukee Magazine, staff favorites included Susan Faludi’s In the Darkroom, Svetlana Alexievich’s Voices from Chernobyl, Jeffrey Eugenides’ Middlesex and Desmond’s Evicted. Take a gander at the MPL’s most-borrowed list, including the book that took the top spot by a wide margin, Paula Hawkin’s The Girl on the Train.
What was your favorite read of the year? Leave it in the comments.
Adult only
| Author | Title | Times book has been checked out | |
| Hawkins, Paula | The Girl on the Train | 1409 | |
| Coates, Ta-nehisi | Between the World and Me | 742 | |
| Kondo, Marie | The Life-changing Magic of Tidying Up: The Japanese art of decluttering and organizing | 642 | |
| Moyes, Jojo | Me Before You | 544 | |
| Hannah, Kristin | The Nightingale | 537 | |
| Grisham, John | Rogue Lawyer | 526 | |
| Evanovich, Janet | Tricky Twenty-Two | 488 | |
| Patterson, James | Cross Justice | 482 | |
| Kondo, Marie | Spark Joy: An illustrated master class on the art of organizing and tidying up | 480 | |
| Kalanithi, Paul | When Breath Becomes Air | 466 |
|
Adult & Children’s
| Author | Title | Times book has been checked out | |
| Hawkins, Paula | The Girl on the Train | 1409 | |
| Kinney, Jeff | Diary of A Wimpy Kid: Old school 10 | 1321 | |
| Kinney, Jeff | Diary of a Wimpy Kid: 9 The Long Haul | 980 | |
| Kinney, Jeff | Diary of a Wimpy Kid: Hard Luck 8 | 857 | |
| Kinney, Jeff | Diary of a wimpy kid : the ugly truth 5 | 827 | |
| Kinney, Jeff | Diary of a wimpy kid : Rodrick rules 2 | 803 | |
| Kinney, Jeff | Dog Days | 769 | |
| Kinney, Jeff | The Third Wheel | 748 | |
| Kinney, Jeff | Diary of a wimpy kid : Greg Heffley’s journal | 743 | |
| Rowling, J. K | Harry Potter and the sorcerer’s stone | 742 |
