Memorial Hall Library’s Most Popular Books In 2022

Andover’s Memorial Hall Library has released its list of most popular books, measured by number of checkouts, for 2022. The list below contains book descriptions and links to the book on Amazon.com.

“We love to provide this list,” said Clare Curran-Ball, the library’s assistant director of technical services and collection development.

If you make purchases on Amazon using any of the links below, Andover News will receive a commission. That said, we prefer you use the library or make your purchases at a local, independent bookstore like Andover Bookstore.

1. The Woman in the Library by Gentill Sulari: Ned Kelly award-winning author Sulari Gentill sets this mystery-within-a-mystery in motion with a deceptively simple, Dear Hannah, What are you writing? pulling us into theornate reading room at the Boston Public Library.
2. The House in the Cerulean Sea by TJ Klune: Lambda Literary Award-winning author TJ Klune’s bestselling, breakout contemporary fantasy that’s “1984 meets The Umbrella Academy with a pinch of Douglas Adams thrown in.” 
3. The Thursday Murder Club by Richard Osman: In a peaceful retirement village, four unlikely friends meet weekly in the Jigsaw Room to discuss unsolved crimes; together they call themselves the Thursday Murder Club. When a local developer is found dead with a mysterious photograph left next to the body, the Thursday Murder Club suddenly find themselves in the middle of their first live case. As the bodies begin to pile up, can our unorthodox but brilliant gang catch the killer, before it’s too late? 
4. West with Giraffes by Lynda Rutledge: An emotional, rousing novel inspired by the incredible true story of two giraffes who made headlines and won the hearts of Depression-era America.
5. The Girl with the Louding Voice by Abi Daré: The unforgettable, inspiring story of a teenage girl growing up in a rural Nigerian village who longs to get an education so that she can find her “louding voice” and speak up for herself, The Girl with the Louding Voice is a simultaneously heartbreaking and triumphant tale about the power of fighting for your dreams
6. The Lincoln Highway by Amor Towles: The bestselling author of A Gentleman in Moscow and Rules of Civility and master of absorbing, sophisticated fiction returns with a stylish and propulsive novel set in 1950s America. 
7. The Sweetness of Water by Nathan Harris: In the spirit of The Known World and The Underground Railroad, an award-winning “miraculous debut” (Washington Post) about the unlikely bond between two freedmen who are brothers and the Georgia farmer whose alliance will alter their lives, and his, forever. 
8. The Uncommon Reader by Alan Bennett: From one of England’s most celebrated writers, a funny and superbly observed novella about the Queen of England and the subversive power of reading. 
9. Gentlemen and Players by Joanne Harris: The New York Times bestselling author takes a riveting new direction with this richly textured, multi-layered novel of friendship, murder, revenge, and class conflict set in an upper-crust English school—as enthralling and haunting as Ian McKewan’s Atonement and Patricia Highsmith’s The Talented Mr. Ripley. 
10. The Paris Apartment by Lucy Foley: From the New York Times bestselling author of The Guest List comes a new locked room mystery, set in a Paris apartment building in which every resident has something to hide.
11. The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo by Taylor Jenkins Reid: From the New York Times bestselling author of Daisy Jones & the Six—an entrancing and “wildly addictive journey of a reclusive Hollywood starlet” (PopSugar) as she reflects on her relentless rise to the top and the risks she took, the loves she lost, and the long-held secrets the public could never imagine.
12. Anxious People by Fredrik Backman: An instant #1 New York Times bestseller, the new novel from the author of A Man Called Ove is a “quirky, big-hearted novel….Wry, wise and often laugh-out-loud funny, it’s a wholly original story that delivers pure pleasure” (People). 
13. The Other Black Girl by Zakiya Dalila Harris: “Riveting, fearless, and vividly original” (Emily St. John Mandel, New York Times bestselling author), this instant New York Times bestseller explores the tension that unfurls when two young Black women meet against the starkly white backdrop of New York City book publishing. 
14. Lessons in Chemistry by Bonnie Garmus: Chemist Elizabeth Zott is not your average woman. In fact, Elizabeth Zott would be the first to point out that there is no such thing as an average woman. But it’s the early 1960s and her all-male team at Hastings Research Institute takes a very unscientific view of equality. Except for one: Calvin Evans; the lonely, brilliant, Nobel–prize nominated grudge-holder who falls in love with—of all things—her mind. True chemistry results.  
15. The Summer Place by Jennifer Weiner: From the #1 New York Times bestselling author of That Summer comes another heartfelt and unputdownable novel of family, secrets, and the ties that bind.

Before he covered Andover, Dave Copeland covered the Israeli mafia that operated in New York City in the 1980s. You can order a signed copy of his book, Blood & Volume: Inside New York’s Israeli Mafia (Barricade Books, 2007) for $14.95 plus shipping.