It’s official – New Zealanders love reading books by New Zealanders, according to latest data collected by Auckland Council Libraries.
For its ‘Year in Review 2024’, Auckland Council found that half of the top 10 most-loaned books across Auckland Council Libraries this year were written by New Zealanders, with Olivia Spooner’s (pictured) compelling war-time love story The Girl from London taking out the top spot.
Aucklander, Josie Shapiro’s debut novel Everything is Beautiful and Everything Hurts made the top five for the second year in a row. Three memoirs by New Zealanders with very diverse life experiences made the top 10. They were surgeon Ineke Meredith’s On Call, war-time spy Pippa Latour’s The Last Secret Agent, and actor Sam Neill’s Did I Ever Tell You This?
Three titles from the top 10 featured in the 2024 We Read Auckland Bestie collection, which included books by or about Aucklanders.
Auckland Council Head of Library and Learning Services, Catherine Leonard says the numbers from the Year in Review show how much enthusiasm Aucklanders have for our own unique stories, and the value the library service provides to support readers and writers.
“The richness and variety of New Zealand stories resonates strongly with Aucklanders, and it’s fantastic to see our local talent being recognised and celebrated. This year’s review highlights the impact our authors have, and the vital role libraries play in making our own New Zealand stories visible and easily accessible to readers,” Catherine says.
Figures from the Year in Review 2024 for Auckland Council Libraries reflect Aucklanders strong connection with their local libraries: An astonishing 11,625 items a day were moved around the library network. The items are mostly print books requested by a library member and moved to their local library for them to pick up.
Total number of items borrowed included:
- 11.4 million physical loans
- 5.5 million digital loans
- Auckland’s most visited library: Central Library with 617,000 visits
- Auckland’s highest issuing library: East Coast Bays Library with 455,000 books borrowed
- 12,600 research queries were answered
- The Auckland Council Libraries has 406,000 active members
- 51,900 new images were added to the Kura Heritage Collections Online.
Auckland Libraries’ Top 10 Adult Books – Physical Loans were:
1 – The girl from London, Olivia Spooner
2 – The secret, Lee Child
3 – The exchange, John Grisham
4 – The edge, David Baldacci
5 – Everything is Beautiful and Everything Hurts, Josie Shapiro
6 – On Call, Ineke Meredith
7 – Lessons in Chemistry, Bonnie Garmus
8 – Traitors Gate, Jeffrey Archer
9 – The Last Secret Agent: the untold story of my life as a spy behind Nazi enemy lines, Pippa Latour
10 – Did I ever tell you this? a memoir, Sam Neill
The statistics are drawn from the Auckland Council library network which consists of 56 libraries across Tāmaki Makaurau, mobile libraries, a corporate library and the regional teams who provide a range of network and online services.
