As part of our World Book Night celebrations on Thursday 23rd April we asked you to let us know the ‘Desert Island Books’ you just couldn’t do without during lockdown.
The books could have been your favourite book as a child, a travel guide to your favourite holiday destination or the latest page turner by your favourite author. We wanted to know what books and authors you were reading and to celebrate how escaping into a book can reduce anxiety and help us relax!
Lots of you joined us on twitter to share your eight favourite reads with us @manclibraries and #desertislandbooks. It’s taken us a while to go through the 400+ book titles, but we finally have the top ten authors the wonderful people of Manchester suggested for their Desert Island Books.
Drum roll please!
In reverse order, we have…
10 Harper Lee
9 Jane Austen
8 George Elliott
7 Bridget Collins
6 F Scott Fitzgerald
5 Herman Hesse
4 Stephen King
3 Philip Pullman
2 George Orwell
And at Number One we have…
J K Rowling and the Harry Potter novels
Proving you are never too old to read a children’s book and that during lockdown escaping into a classic world of fantasy and adventure is what a lot of our customers are needing.
Thank you so much to everyone for taking part.
It would have been even more challenging finding the top 10 novels rather than authors as so many novels received the same amount of votes, but even going by votes for each individual novel, the first Harry Potter novel was the clear winner, receiving 5 more votes than any other!
Never read any of the Harry Potter books yet? You can listen to the whole of Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone, read by Stephen Fry, for free on the Borrowbox app. All the info is here.