What Seattle Read in 2022: Most Popular Checkouts of the Year

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Curious about which books Seattle’s insatiable readers turned to in 2022? Need a little inspiration for that 2023 book list you’re already making? The Library has you covered.

The most popular fiction book checked out from January through November 2022 was “The Sentence,” by Louise Erdrich. The most checked out e-novel was “The House of Broken Angels” by renowned Mexican-American author Luis Alberto Urrea, the selection for the Library’s 2022 Seattle Reads program. Seattle’s community of e-audiobook listeners checked out “Braiding Sweetgrass,” read by author Robin Wall Kimmerer, more than any other e-audiobook.

Several books by Northwest authors also ranked high in popularity in 2022, including “Secret Seattle,” by Library staff member Susanna Ryan; “Red Paint,” by Coast Salish author Sasha LaPointe; The Final Case, by David Guterson; and “Grains for every Season,” by Oregon chef Joshua McFadden (with Martha Holmberg).

Here are the other most popular fiction and nonfiction books, e-books and e-audiobooks among Library patrons last year. Please note that these lists were compiled from anonymous checkout data collected from January 1 through November 30, 2022.

(Also be sure to see the Library’s most popular books of the year in visual form at “Your Checked-Out 2022.”)

10 most popular adult fiction physical books

1. The Sentence, by Louise Erdrich
2. The Maid, by Nita Prose
3. Sea of Tranquility, by Emily St. John Mandel
4. The Final Case, by David Guterson
5. The Swimmers, by Julie Otsuka
6. Book Lovers, by Emily Henry
7. One Italian Summer, by Rebecca Serle
8. This Time Tomorrow, by Emma Straub
9. Remarkably Bright Creatures, by Shelby Van Pelt
10. The Candy House, by Jennifer Egan

Seattle Public Library’s Most Checked Out Books, 2017

We’re already into 2018, but I can’t resist one more look back at reading in 2017. Do you ever wonder what others in the city are reading? Here’s a sneak peak: lists of the 10 most checked out print books and ebooks. So what was Seattle reading in 2017? We mostly checked out fiction, with 60% of the top print books and 70% of the top ebooks consisting of novels. When we did read nonfiction, it was largely focused either on memoirs, or on books that explored this particular political moment from a sociological view. Four titles appeared on both lists. What about you – were any of these titles on your reading list last year?