Around 20,000 books are missing from Palma’s 21 Municipal Libraries according to a new survey.
What began as a report on the most read books has become a breakdown of the ones that were either stolen or never returned, and most of them are either crime novels or erotic novels.
3,500 books have gone missing or not been returned to Can Sales Library in Palma since it was built 15 years ago, including children’s books, popular novels by authors like Patricia Cornwell, classics such as Llibre de les bèsties, by Ramon Llull, The metamorphosis, by Frank Kafka and Brave New World, by Aldous Huxley and self-help books like The monk who sold his Ferrari by Robin Sharma.
The books borrowed most often from libraries in Palma since digital records began are, the Mortadelo & Filemón series by Francisco Ibáñez, The Time In Between which is also known as The Seamstress by María Dueñas and Tell Me Who I Am by Julia Navarro.
Statistics show that most of the books borrowed were in Spanish and the most popular one in Catalan was Les tres bessones, by Roser Capdevila.
The Biblioteca de Culture Artesana, has a long list of fiction titles available in Catalan and in Spanish. Miss Pettigrew Lives For A Day by Winifred Watson was the top choice in Catalan and books by Carmen Mola were first choice in Spanish.
In the Non-Fiction section, Social Intelligence by Daniel Goleman topped the list, followed by Self-help books such as Mindfulness, The Ikigai method and titles by Deepak Chopra.
In Catalan, the most popular book was 21 Lessons For The 21st Century by Yuval Noah Harari, who also wrote Sapiens, followed by Cookbooks, the biography of Aurora Picornell, the work of David Ginard, and Catalan language books.
The most requested novel at Can Sales library in 2019 was Las Hijas del Capitán or The Daughters of The Captain by María Dueñas.
There were also a few weird things, like a book that was returned with the word cancer crossed out and a demand for the withdrawal of a bibliographic exhibition of César Vidal.
Library life in Palma is clearly much more exciting than we thought.
The most in demand fiction titles in 2019:
Biblioteca Can Sales in Palma:
1. Las hijas del capitán, de María Dueñas.
2. Patria, de Fernando Aramburu.
3. La novia gitana, de Carmen Mola.
4. Todo esto te daré, de Dolores Redondo.
5. Las señales del tiempo, de Eva García Sáenz.
Biblioteca de Cultura Artessana in Palma:
CASTELLANO
1. La novia gitana, de Carmen Mola.
2. Próxima estación, Atenas, de Petros Márkaris.
3. La hora de las mujeres sin reloj, de Mamen Sánchez.
CATALÁN
1. El gran día de la senyoreta Pettigrew, de Winifred Watson.
2. El fill de l’italià, de Rafel Nadal.
3. La mort del comanador, de Haruki Murakami.
Bibliotecas Municipales:
1. Yo, Julia, de Santiago Posteguillo.
2. Tú no matarás, de Julia Navarro.
3. La hija del relojero, de Kate Morton.
4. Todo lo que sucedió con MIranda Huff, de Javier Castillo.
5. Las hijas del capitán, de M. Dueñas.
6. Sakura, de Matilde Asensi.