Seattle, What Are You Reading?

image courtesy of Nate Johnston

A community that reads together becomes more connected and more equitable, and the library is where that starts.

Seattle Public Library patrons read a lot, and what they’re reading is changing. Genre fiction has been trending since 2020, ebook checkouts have overtaken physical books, and the titles climbing the popularity charts increasingly reflect what's trending on BookTok rather than librarian curated displays. For younger, tech-savvy readers, these developments are exciting: discovery is faster, access is immediate, and communities around books are thriving online. But the library isn't just for them: it’s purpose is to democratize information for every reader, including those outside BookTok’s user base. What happens to that mission when digital convenience reshapes what gets read and who discovers it?

Why the library?

Seattle residents are deeply invested in the Seattle Public Library system as essential infrastructure. Nearly 40% of Seattle residents hold an active library card, and in a 2022 survey, 98% said the library is as essential to the city as roads, schools, and utilities.

The library is one of the few places where anyone can walk in and access the kind of knowledge that can change how you see the world, at no cost. Reading itself makes us more engaged, informed, and curious about others.

When we read, we engage critical thinking. We interpret complex ideas, sit with them, and work to integrate them into our existing belief system. That process applies whether the ideas are logical or emotional, and expands our capacity to understand perspectives outside of our own. Regardless of genre, reading makes us more informed, understanding, and empathetic.

These skills extend beyond the page. They show up in how we listen to our neighbors, how we participate in civic life, and how we treat people whose life experiences are dramatically different than our own. A community that reads together becomes more connected and more equitable, and the library is where that starts.

What we read tells us what matters

We read to make sense of the world and our place in it. Sometimes we turn to experts who promise to help us make sense of things, like 2021’s popular So You Want to Talk About Race by local author Ijeoma Oluo. Sometimes we escape to Science Fiction or Fantasy universes that allow us to safely to explore existential questions outside the limits of modern society. Sometimes, we read for the emotional comfort of a Romance novel, and reckon with thorny social issues on our path to happily ever after. Sometimes, we are inspired by a cookbook to break our monotonous meal planning slump, or it’s our child who is thoroughly consumed by the latest volume in the Shadow Thieves series. The books we engage with at public libraries are a window into local culture.

But isn’t that what lists like the New York Times Bestsellers are supposed to do? Not exactly. There are no price barriers to checking out books that pique our interest from the library, while purchase decisions requires us to consider whether our interest is worth the commitment to adding it to our collection. Public libraries also actively serve underrepresented communities, making them a uniquely democratic representation of reading culture.

When we compare popular titles at the Seattle Public Library against the NYT Bestseller list, we see that the majority of what Seattle reads reflects national trends: 60% of popular titles at the Seattle Public Library debut in the NYT Bestseller list in the same month or later. During the height of COVID lockdown in April 2020, readers turned to Nonfiction, Biography, and Memoirs to make sense of current events, and the genre accounted for ~20% of popular checkouts. Once restrictions were lifted and life went back to normal, people shifted to reading for escapism, and Romance and Fantasy grew to make up ~24% of popular checkouts by 2023.

35% of popular SPL titles represent an independent culture unique from national tastes, reflective of Seattle’s local identity of multiculturalism, tech innovation, and intellectual curiosity. Seattle’s deeply ingrained multiculturalism is reflected by the popularity of diaspora and foreign authors. Literary fiction authors Weike Wang, Jhumpa Lahiri, Rumaan Khan, and Porochista Khakpour explore identity, race, class, and displacement in immigrant communities. Translated works by Han Kang dissect historical trauma and the role of autonomy in collectivist societies. Food, travel and politics writer Yasmin Khan challenges Middle Eastern stereotypes by chronicling culinary travels through Palestine and Iran. Notably absent from Seattle’s reading list are celebrity chef cookbooks, suggesting that Seattleites prefer cultural specificity to commercial appeal. Regionally specific nonfiction exploring Seattle, Greater Pacific Northwest, and Pacific Islands history reflects a thriving interest in local identity. Science Fiction titles like Annie Bot by Sierra Greer examine themes of agency and control in artificial intelligence, a force that directly impacts the locally dominant tech industry.

The great digital shift and what it means for how Seattle reads

The experience of checking out and reading physical books is very different than that of digital ebooks. Checking out a physical book requires the reader to visit their local branch, interact with Staff Picks or other curated displays, and browse the stacks to find their title of choice. The physical book itself is easy to flip through, and illustrations, maps, or other visual diagrams printed in the book can be easily navigated to for reference. By comparison, checking out a digital ebook is convenient and immediate. If the reader knows the title they’re looking for, they can open the Libby or Overdrive app, search for title, and download the ebook for immediate digital access across devices. The ebook reading experience is also more accessible - font size can be easily adjusted, definitions for challenging vocabulary in the text can be immediately found without ever leaving the ebook, and readers can access many titles on a single mobile device instead of lugging around multiple physical copies.

Before 2020, borrowing books meant going to a local branch and checking out physical books, while borrowing ebooks was a less common but slowly growing share of checkouts. When COVID shelter in place mandates closed SPL branches in March 2020, readers turned to borrowing ebooks from the digital catalog through apps like Overdrive and Libby. Physical checkouts bounced back after branches started to reopen for curbside pickup in August 2020, but they never fully reclaimed their lead over ebooks. Readers prioritized the accessibility benefits and convenience that borrowing digital ebooks had over physical books. Since September 2023, digital checkouts have surpassed physical checkouts to become the dominant way readers borrow content from SPL’s catalog. This shift coincides with the rise of recommendation engines like BookTok that reshape how readers discover books entirely.

As library checkouts shift from physical to digital over time, popular ebooks and physical books have less and less in common. Before 2023, 7% of the most popular physical book titles were also in the most popular ebook list. Since then, that overlap has dropped to 3%. Ebook popularity is also more concentrated across genres than physical books - the top 10% of ebook checkouts are made up of 17 genres, while their physical book counterparts span 23 genres. Whether this is caused by the same readers behaving differently across formats or completely different members of the community, the medium itself influences what becomes popular.

Additionally, ebooks popularity cycles are getting shorter. In 2017, a popular ebook stayed in the SPL Top 10 Ebooks List for 5–7 consecutive months. Titles like Educated, The Goldfinch, and Where the Crawdads Sing held their spots for over two years. By 2024, the median Top 10 ebook stayed in that list for just 1 month before dropping out and being replaced with another title.

Popular ebooks have more overlap with commercial tastes reflected in the NYT Bestseller Lists than physical books, themselves subject to recommendation engines like BookTok that amplify what’s popular and cycle through trends faster. Someone who discovers a book through Booktok on their mobile device can immediately navigate to Libby and borrow that title. By comparison, a reader who visits their local branch to pick up a physical copy has more opportunities to discover new titles through displays and staff curated lists, and the influence of recommendation engines is weakened.

What does this mean for the library?

The rise of Booktok has created thriving book communities online and inspired interest in reading among younger adults and in genre fiction. But it’s worth considering who it is for and who it leaves behind. By definition, recommendation engines like Booktok optimize for engagement in clicks and views without explicit consideration for equity, which means they surface what's already popular to people already online. The library has a different goal: to democratize information access for all readers, including those not on TikTok and especially those who need more support.

How does the library translate the curated displays of physical branches into digital platforms like Libby so that readers are as willing to reach for their library for what to read next as they are BookTok? How do they ensure digital collections stay accessible to all community members, including those with low tech literacy or limited access to mobile devices and the internet? What happens to in-person programs like story times, book clubs, education and training programs, and cultural exhibitions that make the library more than just a free catalog?

There are no easy answers to these questions, but the best step towards building a platform that reflects and addresses the community’s needs almost certainly comes from the community itself.

Thanks for reading! If you're curious - figures, data referenced, methodology, and other details are available to peruse here.