Prince Harry’s memoir and a weed whacker: What Berkeley library patrons asked for in 2023

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As 2023 draws to a close, we sought to get the inside scoop on the Berkeley Public Library’s most-checked out items of the year.

The library provided us with lists of the most popular fiction and nonfiction titles — as well as the most desired household tools borrowed from its innovative Tool Lending Library.

Two books with Berkeley connections reigned over the adult nonfiction category: Hua Hsu’s Pulitzer Prize-winning memoir Stay True, which chronicles his years at UC Berkeley, was the top title, followed by Prince Harry’s autobiography Spare, which was ghostwritten by Berkeley writer J.R. Moehringer. Barbara Kingsolver’s Pulitzer Prize-winning Demon Copperhead dominated the adult fiction category. 

For kids fiction, the most checked-out title was Click by Kayla Miller. Shōnen manga seemed to be popular among Berkeley’s teens, with Kōhei Horikoshi’s My Hero Academia and Masashi Kishimoto’s Naruto leading the teen fiction category.

Thien Pham’s Family Style: Memories of an American from Vietnam, a memoir that follows Pham’s search for belonging as a young refugee in San Jose was the most-borrowed title in the teen nonfiction category, followed closely by Dashka Slater’s The 57 Bus, which tells the story of an agender student at Berkeley’s Maybeck High who is set on fire by another teen while sleeping on a bus in Oakland. Slater’s book has appeared on many banned book lists across the country. 

Over at the Tool Lending Library, established in 1979 and available to all cardholders 18 and up, 50-foot extension cords were the most-checked-out item, beating out the usual favorite, the electric string trimmer, also known as the weed whacker. (Also on loan from the idiosyncratic library are air quality monitors, a bike repair kit and a cake pan shaped like Elsa from Disney’s Frozen.)

Not counted in these lists are laptop checkouts. In 2023, in-library Windows 10 laptops, which can be self-checked-out from a kiosk for up to two hours and must remain inside the library, had the highest circulation of anything, with a whopping 7,067 checkouts, library spokesperson Aimee Reeder wrote in an email. The laptop kiosks were introduced in 2018. Chromebooks with Wi-Fi hotspots, which can be taken home and used for up to four weeks, were also well-loved and checked out 544 times.

The library’s most checked-out items of 2023

Tools

1. 50-foot extension cords (891 checkouts)
2. Weed whacker (825)
3. Drill bit set (616)
4. Hedge shear (428)
5. 32-inch lopping shears (398)
6. Hand-pruning shears (381)
7. Worm-drive saw (361)
8. Sabre saw (357)
9. Reciprocating saw (342)
10. 12-inch bar clamp (325)

Adult nonfiction

1. Stay True by Hua Hsu (576 checkouts)
2. Spare by Prince Harry (552)
3. An Immense World: How Animal Senses Reveal the Hidden Realms Around Us by Ed Yong (422)
4. Solito by Javier Zamora (422)
5. Crying in H Mart by Michelle Zauner (380)
6. I’m Glad My Mom Died by Jenette McCurdy (353)
7. Smitten Kitchen Keepers: New Classics for Your Forever Files by Deb Perelman (358)
8. Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge, and the Teachings of Plants by Robin Wall Kimmerer (326)
9. Dinner in One: Exceptional & Easy One-Pan Meals by Melissa Clark (321)
10. Four Thousand Weeks: Time Management for Mortals by Oliver Burkeman (304)

Adult fiction

1. Demon Copperhead by Barbara Kingsolver (931 checkouts)
2. Lessons in Chemistry by Bonnie Garmus (722)
3. Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow by Gabrielle Zevin (648)
4. Lucy by the Sea by Elizabeth Strout (545)
5. A World of Curiosities by Louise Penny (493)
6. Our Missing Hearts by Celeste Ng (486)
7. Candy House by Jennifer Egan (469)
8. Horse by Geraldine Brooks (452)
9. Sea of Tranquility by Emily St. John Mandel (433)
10. Nightcrawling by Leila Mottley (422)

Teen nonfiction

1. Family Style: Memories of an American from Vietnam by Thien Pham (85 checkouts)
2. The 57 Bus: The True Story of Two Teenagers and the Crime That Changed Their Lives by Dashka Slater (83)
3. Pokemon Visual Companion by Simcha Whitehill, Lawrence Neves, Katherine Fang, Cris Silvestri, Glenn Dakin (73)
4. Dogs by David Alderton (59)
5. They Called Us Enemy by George Takei, Justin Eisinger, Harmony Becker, Steven Scott (57) 
6. Bats: Learning to Fly by Falynn Koch (57)
7. In Limbo: A Graphic Memoir by Deb JJ Lee (49)
8. Hey, Kiddo by Jarrett Krosoczka (46)
9. The Fire Never Goes Out: A Memoir in Pictures by ND Stevenson (45)
10. Maybe an Artist by Liz Montague (45)

Teen fiction

1. My Hero Academia, Vol. 1 by Khei Horikoshi, Caleb D. Cook (307 checkouts)
2. Naruto: Kakashi v.s. Itachi, Vol. 29 by Masashi Kishimoto, Ian Reid (267)
3. Bakuman, Vol. 1 by Tsugumi Ohba (215)
4. The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess, Vol. 4 by Akira Himekawa, Stan! (192)
5. American Born Chinese by Gene Luen Yang (181)
6. All My Rage by Sabaa Tahir (179)
7. A Wrinkle in Time: The Graphic Novel by Madeleine L’Engle, Larson Hope (177)
8. Dragon Ball, Vol. 5 by Akira Toriyama, Toyotarou (176)
9. Hera: The Goddess and her Glory by George O’Connor (157)
10. Athena: Grey-eyed Goddess by George O’Connor (156)

Kids fiction

1. Click by Kayla Miller (600 checkouts)
2. Mary Anne’s Bad Luck Mystery #13, The Baby-Sitters Club by Cynthia Yuan Cheng, Ann M. Martin (599)
3. Dog Man: Lord of the Fleas by Dav Pilkey (491)
4. Dog Man: Mothering Heights by Dav Pilkey (480)
5. Cat Kid Comic Club: Collaborations by Dav Pilkey (473)
6. Wings of Fire: The Dragonet Prophecy by Tui Sutherland, Barry Deutsch, Mike Holmes (467)
7. Dog Man: Brawl of the Wild by Dav Pilkey (446)
8. Dog Man: Unleashed by Dav Pilkey (427)
9. The Thank You Book by Mo Willems (412)
10. A Big Guy Took My Ball! by Mo Willems (406)

Note: Eagle-eyed subscribers of The Scene, Berkeleyside’s free arts and culture newsletter which goes out on Thursday morning, may have noticed that a few rankings have changed. That’s because more items have been checked out since our initial request.