Panorama Project Releases 4th Quarter 2020 Picks - Regional Lists of Popular Fiction, Nonfiction and Young Adult Titles in Libraries That Can Drive Bookseller Traffic

“Going beyond the usual bestseller lists to showcase authors and to identify sales opportunities for local booksellers”

The Panorama Project is pleased to announce the latest Panorama Picks which showcase recent adult fiction, adult nonfiction, and young adult titles with the highest unmet demand in US public libraries. The nine regional lists feature 25 titles in each category.

Panorama Picks are unique from other lists in that they are derived from anonymized hold list data for e-books from public libraries throughout the United States.  The resulting lists of recently published titles have notably longer wait times for local library patrons.  This unmet demand represents sales potential for booksellers as well as opportunities for author events, read-alikes, and special promotions.  In the Panorama Project’s recently released report, “Immersive Media & Books 2020”, nearly 40% of respondents to the survey indicated that they had bought a book either on-line or from a bookstore when the book was not available from their local library.

The new lists measure public library activity from September 2020 through December 2020 and feature books published from October 2019 through June 2020.

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Adult fiction titles with notable unmet demand across multiple regions include Shuggie Bain  (Douglas Stewart, Grove Atlantic), The Family Upstairs (Lisa Jewell, Atria Books) Hideaway (Nora Roberts, St. Martin’s), Interior China (Charles Yu, Knopf Doubleday), Sex & Vanity (Kevin Kwan, Knopf Doubleday), The Glass Hotel (Emily St. John Mandel, Knopf Doubleday), The Last Flight (Julie Clark, Sourcebooks), and The Sun Down Motel (Simone St. James, Penguin).

Adult nonfiction titles with notable unmet demand across multiple regions include Entangled Life (Merlin Sheldrake, Random House), Why Fish Don't Exist (Lulu Miller, Simon & Schuster), Shade (Pete Souza, Little, Brown & Co.), What It's Like to Be a Bird (David Allen Sibley, Knopf Doubleday), Get Out of Your Head (Jennie Allen, The Crown Publishing Group), Tiny Habits (BJ Fogg, HMH Books), In the Dream House (Carmen Maria Machado, Graywolf Press), and Dirt (Bill Buford, Knopf Doubleday).

Young Adult titles with notable unmet demand across multiple regions include Tweet Cute (Emma Lord, St. Martin’s), The Queen of Nothing (Holly Black, Little, Brown BYR), Code Name Verity (Elizabeth Wein, Little, Brown – BYR)), The Mermaid, the Witch and the Sea (Maggie Tokuda-Hall, Candlewick Press), All Boys Aren't Blue (George M. Johnson, Farrar, Strauss and Giroux – BYR), The Toll (Neil Shusterman, Simon & Schuster – BYR), Rebel (Marie Lu, Roaring Brook Press), and The Upside of Falling (Alex Light, HarperTeen).

Noted Daniel Albohn, Panorama’s Project Lead, “We compile and publish Panorama Picks on a quarterly basis to showcase authors and their publishers, and especially those titles that may not have received a high level of publicity.  It is our goal to share these recommendations with local booksellers given the level of interest demonstrated by library patrons who live the same communities.”