In the week that Public Lending Right reveals which are the most borrowed authors and titles at our libraries, we look at what the chart means for authors and readers.
We discuss the many collaborators of the chart-topping novelist James Patterson, debate whether Francesca Simon's Horrid Henry has ousted Jacqueline Wilson's sparky girls from the top spot in children's hearts, and find out why the Congo is the destination most favoured by armchair travellers.
We also take a look around a working library with the best-selling author Tracy Chevalier, and talk to Peter Carey about his obsession with Alexis de Tocqueville – the aristocratic 19th-century thinker who was the inspiration behind his new novel, Parrot and Olivier in America.
Reading List
Parrot and Olivier in America, by Peter Carey (Faber)
Sail, by James Patterson (Century)
The Outcast, by Sadie Jones (Chatto & Windus)
The Welsh Girl, by Peter Ho Davies (Sceptre)
Horrid Henry, by Francesca Simon (Orion)
For the top 250 library titles, go to guardian.co.uk/datablog
The Ode Less Travelled:Unlocking the Poet Within, by Stephen Fry (Arrow)
