James Patterson stamps out library competition
Richard Lea writing in The Guardian, Friday February 8, 2008

James Patterson has knocked Jacqueline Wilson off her perch as the author most-borrowed from British libraries, with more than 1.5m copies of his thrillers issued between July 2006 and June 2007.

He becomes only the third author ever to have claimed top spot, Wilson having taken over in 2004 from Catherine Cookson, who had reigned supreme since records were first published in 1982.
Children's author Daisy Meadows, and romantic novelists Josephine Cox and Nora Roberts join Patterson and Wilson in achieving more than 1m loans.

A further 237 authors will receive the maximum payment of £6,600, a fee corresponding to
approximately 110,000 loans at a fee of 5.98p per loan.

The UK's most borrowed book is Patricia Cornwell's At Risk - although the author's combined loans only put her at number 21 in the overall list. With only seven novels to her credit, JK
Rowling posts at number 107, despite Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince's
showing as the most-borrowed children's book.
Rowling's comparatively lowly position is perhaps emblematic of the differences between the flighty bestseller charts and the solidity of the library lending list, which
prioritises authors with a weighty backlist. None of Rowling's fellow top 10
bestselling authors of 2007 make the top 100 of the library list.

Literary fiction is also conspicuously absent. Ian McEwan's Atonement made 13th place in the 2007 bestsellers list - but the author was placed at 252 on the library chart.

The top 10 most-borrowed authors:

1. James Patterson (Adults)
2. Jacqueline Wilson (Children)
3. Daisy Meadows (Children)
4. Josephine Cox (Adults)
5. Nora Roberts (Adults)
6. Danielle Steel (Adults)
7. Ian Rankin (Adults)
8. Mick Inkpen (Children)
9. Janet & Allan Ahlberg (Children)
10. Francesca Simon (Children)