Top Syndetics Unbound Titles of 2023

Syndetics Unbound’s year-end “Top Titles” list for all of 2023!

We’ve compiled the most popular books in public libraries around the world, drawing on the thousands of libraries that use Syndetics Unbound to add covers, recommendations, summaries, series information and other enhancements to their library catalogs.

This post covers the United States. Soon we’ll be releasing the data for Australia, Canada and the UK.

First, here’s a “bar chart race” showing the top books changing over the year. You can also see and share the visualization over on Flourish.

Here are the top titles for the whole year:

And here is a complete list of the top 100 books in US public libraries in 2023.

1. Lessons in Chemistry by Bonnie Garmus
2. Fourth Wing by Rebecca Yarros
3. Demon Copperhead by Barbara Kingsolver
4. Happy Place by Emily Henry
5. It Ends with Us by Colleen Hoover
6. Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow by Gabrielle Zevin
7. Spare by Prince Harry, Duke of Sussex
8. Remarkably Bright Creatures by Shelby Van Pelt
9. The Covenant of Water by Abraham Verghese
10. It Starts with Us by Colleen Hoover
11. Verity by Colleen Hoover
12. Hello Beautiful by Ann Napolitano
13. The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo by Taylor Jenkins Reid
14. A Court of Thorns and Roses by Sarah J. Maas
15. Killers of the Flower Moon: The Osage Murders and the Birth of the FBI by David Grann
16. Tom Lake by Ann Patchett
17. Mad Honey by Jodi Picoult
18. I’m Glad My Mom Died by Jennette McCurdy
19. The Heaven and Earth Grocery Store by James McBride
20. Atomic Habits: Tiny Changes, Remarkable Results: An Easy and Proven Way to Build Good Habits and Break Bad Ones by James Clear
21. Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone by J. K. Rowling
22. The Wager: A Tale of Shipwreck, Mutiny, and Murder by David Grann
23. The Housemaid by Freida McFadden
24. The House in the Pines by Ana Reyes
25. The Five-Star Weekend by Elin Hilderbrand
26. The Last Thing He Told Me by Laura Dave
27. Simply Lies by David Baldacci
28. The Midnight Library by Matt Haig
29. None of This Is True by Lisa Jewell
30. The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes by Suzanne Collins
31. The Silent Patient by Alex Michaelides
32. The Summer I Turned Pretty by Jenny Han
33. The Exchange: After The Firm by John Grisham
34. Horse by Geraldine Brooks
35. All the Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr
36. Someone Else’s Shoes by Jojo Moyes
37. I Will Find You by Harlan Coben
38. The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins
39. Pineapple Street by Jenny Jackson
40. Identity by Nora Roberts
41. Things We Never Got Over by Lucy Score
42. Hang the Moon by Jeannette Walls
43. The Maid by Nita Prose
44. Storm Watch by C. J. Box
45. Ugly Love by Colleen Hoover
46. Holly by Stephen King
47. The Nightingale by Kristin Hannah
48. Book Lovers by Emily Henry
49. The Boys from Biloxi by John Grisham
50. Daisy Jones and The Six by Taylor Jenkins Reid
51. A Good Girl’s Guide to Murder by Holly Jackson
52. A Court of Mist and Fury by Sarah J. Maas
53. The 23rd Midnight by James Patterson
54. Homecoming by Kate Morton
55. I Have Some Questions for You by Rebecca Makkai
56. The Lightning Thief by Rick Riordan
57. Where the Crawdads Sing by Delia Owens
58. Never Never: Part One by Colleen Hoover
59. The Only One Left by Riley Sager
60. Reminders of Him by Colleen Hoover
61. The Four Winds by Kristin Hannah
62. Trust by Hernan Diaz
63. Yellowface by R.F. Kuang
64. Dog Man by Dav Pilkey
65. Dark Angel by John Sandford
66. Heart Bones by Colleen Hoover
67. Outlive: The Science and Art of Longevity by Peter Attia
68. The Thursday Murder Club by Richard Osman
69. Iron Flame by Rebecca Yarros
70. November 9 by Colleen Hoover
71. The Woman In Me by Britney Spears
72. Fairy Tale by Stephen King
73. The River We Remember by William Kent Krueger
74. The Body Keeps The Score: Mind, Brain and Body in the Transformation of Trauma by Bessel A. van der Kolk
75. Resurrection Walk by Michael Connelly
76. Zero Days by Ruth Ware
77. Dirty Thirty by Janet Evanovich
78. The Secret by Lee Child
79. The House of Wolves by James Patterson
80. The Personal Librarian by Marie Benedict
81. Throne of Glass by Sarah J. Maas
82. West with Giraffes by Lynda Rutledge
83. Friends, Lovers, and the Big Terrible Thing: A Memoir by Matthew Perry
84. A Man Called Ove by Fredrik Backman
85. Just the Nicest Couple by Mary Kubica
86. A World of Curiosities by Louise Penny
87. Crying in H Mart: A Memoir by Michelle Zauner
88. Our Missing Hearts by Celeste Ng
89. Lady Tan’s Circle of Women by Lisa See
90. Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets by J. K. Rowling
91. Romantic Comedy by Curtis Sittenfeld
92. How to Sell a Haunted House by Grady Hendrix
93. Malibu Rising by Taylor Jenkins Reid
94. The Measure by Nikki Erlick
95. People We Meet on Vacation by Emily Henry
96. A Flicker in the Dark by Stacy Willingham
97. Countdown by James Patterson
98. The Inheritance Games by Jennifer Lynn Barnes
99. Beach Read by Emily Henry
100. Wrong Place Wrong Time by Gillian McAllister

How Do We Know?

This data was collected by Syndetics Unbound. The search data is fully anonymized the day it is collected.