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Between 2017 and 2026 we borrowed 1,237 books from three library systems — Los Angeles Public Library, Qatar National Library, and Gwinnett County in Georgia. That is 945 different titles.
A handful we borrowed over and over. Those are below.
An important caveat about what this list means
A repeat borrow is not the same as a re-read. Library loans expire. If a book is long, or life gets busy, or you put it down for a fortnight, the loan lapses and you borrow it again to finish the same reading. Some of these we genuinely did read three or four times. Others we borrowed three times to get through once.
There is no way to tell the two apart from a borrowing record, and we would rather say so than pretend the data is cleaner than it is. What the list does reliably show is which books we kept coming back to the library for — which is its own kind of signal.
Borrowed three or more times
| Title | Borrows | Buy |
|---|---|---|
| Originals Adam Grant | 6× | Amazon · eBay |
| The Jazz of Physics Stephon Alexander | 5× | Amazon · eBay |
| Can’t Hurt Me David Goggins | 5× | Amazon · eBay |
| Swahili IA Pimsleur Language Program | 5× | Amazon · eBay |
| Swahili Crash Course LANGUAGE/30 | 5× | Amazon · eBay |
| Zone One Colson Whitehead | 5× | Amazon · eBay |
| The Color of Law Richard Rothstein | 5× | Amazon · eBay |
| Colorization Wil Haygood | 5× | Amazon · eBay |
| American Spy Lauren Wilkinson | 5× | Amazon · eBay |
| The Book of Herbal Wisdom Matthew Wood | 4× | Amazon · eBay |
| Montessori from the Start Paula Polk Lillard | 4× | Amazon · eBay |
| The Anxious Generation Jonathan Haidt | 4× | Amazon · eBay |
| The 2-Hour Workshop Blueprint Leanne Hughes | 4× | Amazon · eBay |
| Pimsleur Swahili Level 1 Pimsleur | 4× | Amazon · eBay |
| A Quantum Hijria: a Sufi Science Fiction Tale Dawoud Kringle | 4× | Amazon · eBay |
| Fear of a Black Universe Stephon Alexander | 4× | Amazon · eBay |
| The Shadow King Maaza Mengiste | 4× | Amazon · eBay |
| Hurma Ali al-Muqri | 4× | Amazon · eBay |
| Deep Work Cal Newport | 4× | Amazon · eBay |
| The Record Keeper Agnes Gomillion | 4× | Amazon · eBay |
The language courses are the clearest example
Four entries here are Swahili courses — Pimsleur and LANGUAGE/30 — borrowed five, five and four times.
Nobody re-reads a language course for pleasure. You borrow it, work through as much as a three-week loan allows, lose the thread, and borrow it again. That is what learning a language by library loan actually looks like, and it is the single best illustration of why a borrow count is not a read count.
It is also, incidentally, a strong argument for owning the course outright rather than borrowing it — which is why they are linked above alongside everything else.
What the list does show
Physics keeps coming back. Stephon Alexander appears twice — The Jazz of Physics and Fear of a Black Universe.
So does Black American history and fiction. Colson Whitehead, Richard Rothstein, Wil Haygood, Lauren Wilkinson, Agnes Gomillion, Maaza Mengiste.
And there is a Sufi science fiction novel in there four times — Dawoud Kringle’s A Quantum Hijria — which is not a book most borrowing records contain even once.
Why we published this
Every e-reader site tells you a device is good for reading. Very few show you what the reviewer actually reads.
The devices we photograph have these books on their screens — Deep Work on the Kindle Oasis, a French Harlem Shuffle on a Kobo, Chester Himes on a Tolino. It seemed worth showing the whole list rather than only the covers that happened to be open.
Browse by year from Books We Read, or see the devices in our best e-readers guide.