Whatever We Call It

The list of titles with the most holds (Current Popular Titles)(or, Books You're Willing To Wait in Line For)(or, 'the manyholds list') has been updated. These are the titles carrying the highest interest among our readers: authors with the most faithful following or the most stamina for making the media rounds to create buzz for their works; hot topics; local favorites. Almost always the authors are familiar names. At the top of the list right now:

• Blue shoes and happiness / Alexander McCall-Smith
• Two little girls in blue / Mary Higgins Clark
• At risk / Patricia Cornwell
• Gone / Jonathan Kellerman
• Dead watch / John Sandford
• American theocracy : the perils and politics of radical religion, oil, and borrowed money in the 21st century / Kevin Phillips

But there are always some interesting things interspersed; a bit further down the list (i.e., shorter waiting list), it runs

• The secret supper / Javier Sierra
• Labyrinth / Kate Mosse
• My life in France / Julia Child
• Eat, pray, love : one woman's search for everything across Italy, India and Indonesia / Elizabeth Gilbert
• Sweet swan of Avon : did a woman write Shakespeare? / Robin P. Williams
• The omnivore's dilemma : a natural history of four meals / Michael Pollan
• Elements of style / Wendy Wasserstein

Then back to a sequence of popular authors again. This is not so much surprising as just endlessly fascinating, trying to anticipate what our users want, noticing what there isn't enough of, watching demand fall off—or not. Six people are waiting for Geraldine Brooks' 2004 title, March. (Might be a reading group.)

The list is always available from the catalog start page, and from the About Books & Literature page.