Bestselling author James Patterson has topped
the list of the most authors whose books are borrowed most from British libraries. This is the second year in a row that Patterson has claimed that honor.
The American is revealed today as the UK's most borrowed author from libraries, coming top for the second year, after his books were taken out more than 1.5m times between July 2007 and June 2008.
Patterson and the writers he employs are happy to keep the fans happy, with the Patterson name emblazoned across at least eight books in the last year, in genres from thriller to romance to misery memoir. Other writers' names regularly appear on the cover - often in much smaller type - but he denies that he sometimes has no involvement at all in the writing. Last year he said: "I get all this baloney about well, what does he do? Does he even look at them? Well yes, he does look at them."
Among his series are the Alex Cross books about a black detective and model single father who mixes family life and volunteering with tackling unimaginably horrible killers. There is his Maximum Ride series for young adults featuring youngsters who are 2% avian. Other heroes are the four women in San Francisco who eat Mexican food while solving murders.
The list goes on to more than 60 published works. It is mainly this prolificness that ensures Patterson is number one. The other two holders of the top spot since records began were similarly able to turn them out: Jacqueline Wilson was number one from 2002-06 and before that it was Catherine Cookson for 18 years.
The Guardian seems quite miffed that Patterson has topped the list again, calling him more "a factory than an author." Ouch.
