(I have not, and likely will not, comment much on the tsunami. It’s terrible, but I have nothing substantive to add, and so many other quarters are doing such a grand job that I feel like there’s nothing I could do that would make a difference.)
Anyone who knows me adequately will be utterly unsurprised to learn that, in high school, I worked in the local library for over a year. So when I came across this article I had one reaction:
Librarians can now verify something they have long suspected: The fiction most sought-after by patrons is mysteries.
“We’ve done book-buying surveys over the years, and it always comes out that mysteries are the first and romance is a close second,” says Francine Fialkoff, editor of Library Journal. “I do think this (list) just confirms that libraries are huge lenders of mysteries. Almost every one of the popular fiction (titles) is a mystery.
That reaction is: “Well, duh!”
The great majority of regular patrons were sweet little old ladies (and you know, of course, that since I was the only male working there, I was their favorite). A solid plurality of the remainder were middle–aged housewives. There’s you’re mystery readers and your romance readers right there.
Men did enter the premises, some of them even did so without children in tow, but as I say the regulars were largely older women. And older women love mysteries. And romance. But mostly mysteries.
The only way such a report could have shocked me would be if neither mystery nor romance made the top two.
(†Tod Goldberg, filling in on his brother’s blog)