Okay, I’ve really got to get some writing done. But since I posted the idea of seeing which authors have the highest average checkouts per book, I now feel obligated to share it because some of those on the top 200 authors list drop off while others appear. So this one shows the authors getting the most readers per book. For more information on the lists and source of the data, please see the previous two posts.

• Top 200 YA Novels of 2010
• Top 200 YA Authors of 2010

BTW, a number of Utahans made this list that we hadn’t seen on the others.

1. Stephenie Meyer (3)
2. Shannon Hale (4)
3. Lisa Mangum (8)
4. Jessica Day George (10)
5. Aprilynne Pike (13)
6. James Dashner (21)
7. Bree Despain (32)
8. Mette Ivie Harrison (40)
9. M.L. Forman (52)
10. Brandon Sanderson (64)
11. Chris Heimerdinger (112)
12. Julie Wright (145)
13. Ally Condie (146)
14. Kiersten White (151)
15. Jack Weyland (188)

If I’ve missed any Utah (or former Utah) authors, please let me know. Holy schnitzel, look at them all.

EDIT: 1/16/2011 9:32 AM: Informed that Bree Despain is also a Utah author.

EDIT: 1/18/2011 6:21 PM: Turns out Kiersten White grew up in Utah, but moved to San Diego after she married. I’m still claiming her, although I often wish I could trade subzero land for beaches and 70 degrees

EDIT: 1/18/2011 10:20 PM: just informed that M.L. Forman is a Utah author.

The List

On Thursday I posted the top 200 YA  novels of 2010. Today I’m happy to share the top 200 authors. You might be wondering: if we already have a top 200, why post this? Because yesterday was about individual titles. Today’s post is about authors. Some authors might not have any books that are checked out in huge numbers. But because they have a lot of books available, the numbers of checkouts they do have add up. Yesterday’s list showed you the volume for individual books. Today’s list shows you the volume for each author. You’ll see it does result in a different ranking.

This list is based on the same dataset as the previous list. And so while I can’t claim it represents the top YA authors for the whole United States, it does show who is being read in this neck of the woods. It’s a great list for those wanting to find YA authors to try.  Please be aware that these are YA books as defined by the library, which takes its cue from places like Booklist and School Library Journal. Other books like the first three Harry Potters, Brandon Mull’s Fablehaven series, and some of Dashner’s stuff are considered Middle Grade and so do not appear on this list. Later, I might do a combined list.

There were 1,283 authors on the list. ”Times Checked Out” is the sum of all the times any of the author’s books were checked out. “Number of Titles” is the number of different titles the author has that were checked out. “Avg Check Outs per Title” is the average number of times each title was checked out. “%” is percentage of total checkouts. Rank is rank. Another way to sort this would be by the Avg Check Outs per Title to see who’s getting the highest number of readers per book. But I’ll let you fiddle with that on your own. Again, I’m very happy to see a number of Utahans on the list. Kudos to the following (ranking in parentheses):

• Stephenie Meyer (4)
• Shannon Hale (5)
• Jessica Day George (10)
• Chris Heimerdinger (18)
• Jack Weyland (38)
• Lisa Mangum (55)
• Mette Ivie Harrison (56)
• Aprilynne Pike (71)
• Brandon Sanderson (73)
• Ally Condie (82)
• James Dashner (94)
• Bree Despain (110)

EDIT: 1/15/2011 12:57 AM. Okay, okay here’s the list by average checkout: Top 200 YA Authors of 2010, Part 2. A number of people drop off, new names appear, and positions shuffle.

EDIT: 1/16/2011 9:32 AM: Informed that Bree Despain is also a Utah author.

The List

USA Today just published their list of the top 100 bestsellers of 2010. Publishers Weekly  and other places will soon follow. But sales don’t always capture the full picture. Some books may be purchased once and read once. Others are passed around until they’re ragged. Furthermore, many books sell well over a number of years but don’t get the volume in any week or year to put them on the list. That’s why I like to also look at circulation numbers. And I just happen to have the YA circulation numbers for the Logan, Utah library (thank you Super Librarian Melanie), which serves the 115,000 folks of Cache County, 50,000 of which are in Logan itself. Not a bad population size to get an idea of what’s being read.

Of course, I know each area in the country will have a slightly (or hugely) different list, which makes sense because tastes differ from region to region (for example, I’m betting Chris Heimerdinger isn’t really big in, say, Alabama), but also because collections differ as well. For example, I was surprised Dan Wells didn’t show up with I Am Not A Serial Killer, but the Logan library doesn’t even have that book. So this method does have limitations. It would be nice to get a national breakdown. But until someone is able to cobble that together, this gives a good picture of what’s being read in this part of the world. Regardless of where you live, this should constitute a list of books that ought to be great reads for teens and adults.

In 2010, 3,574 YA titles were checked out a total of 33,156 times (by adults and youth–whoever has a card). Books in the collection but not checked out didn’t make the list, of course. Here are the top 200 books. The Total column shows how many times the book was checked out. % shows what percent of the total circulation that represents. Rank is rank. I was very happy to see quite a few Utah authors (or former Utahans) on this list. Congrats to the following (# titles in top 200):

• Shannon Hale (6)
• Jessica Day George (6)
• Stephenie Meyer (5)
• Brandon Sanderson (3)
• Mette Ivie Harrison (3)
• Aprilynne Pike (2)
• Lisa Mangum (2)
• Chris Heimerdinger (2)
• Jack Weyland (1)
• James Dashner (1)

BTW, here are the companion lists: Top 200 YA Authors of 2010 (showing total volume, not by book, but by author) and Top 200 YA Authors of 2010, Part 2 (showing the authors with the most readers per book)

The List

EDIT: 1/13/2011 11:42 AM. I just found out the first set of data I posted included more than checkouts: things like renewals, searches, bills, etc. So the numbers were wacked. This changed both the rankings and the numbers of books included by some of the authors. What you see now are the correct numbers for checkouts.

EDIT: 1/14/2011 3:31 PM. Okay, one more edit. Silly us–we left off books shelved in the “New Book” category. These numbers are checked, double-checked, and rock solid.

A Ferocious Battle

 I just finished reading Black Hawk Down by Mark Bowden. It is the most gripping account of any battle I have ever read.

In 1992 a Somali warlord attacked and killed U.N. peacekeeping forces. As a result, the US put a $25,000 bounty on his head and attempted to arrest and try him for war crimes. On October 3, 1993, by the order of President Bill Clinton, a force of United States Army Rangers and Delta Force operators, the Army’s most elite warriors, set out to capture several lieutenants of the warlord’s militia in an area of the Somali capital city of Mogadishu that was controlled by the warlord.

The force of about a hundred U.S. soldiers helicoptered in during broad daylight. They roped down to the streets surrounding the target building. It was supposed to take them no more than an hour. They would bag the warlord’s lieutenants, put them on a convoy of Army trucks that had barreled into the city and were waiting right around the corner, and get out.

But the citizenry, loyal to the warlord, weren’t going to take it lying down. They began to swarm with guns and rocket propelled grenades. They attacked, almost heedless of the danger. One Somali with an AK-47 rode a cow out in a strange charge, a number of other Somali’s taking cover behind (yeah, he and the cow died). But the Americans were overconfident of their Black Hawk helicopters. They didn’t think the types of weapons the Somalis had could bring them down.

One chopper was hit and crashed. Then another. A third and then a fourth were damaged and barely made it back to safety before they crash landed. As for the Rangers and D-boys, they were in for the fight of their life.

The book tells the story of their courage, but it also brings in the point of view of a number of actual Somalis who fought and were injured. In the process, we get a view of the battle that is both thrilling and poignant.

Bowden did an excellent job researching and writing this. I could not put it down. It does include some military grade profanity, but it wasn’t there to titillate or shock. I’ve talked to those who saw the movie based on this book, and I could tell the book is, per usual, better than the movie. If you’re at all interested in the military and the military operations we conduct overseas, let me recommend that you read this book. 

Delta Force Commander Shares Insights

Delta Force is the world’s most elite counterterrorist fighting force. Pete Blaber was a Delta Force operator that worked his way up to become a Delta Force commander and took part in some of the most dangerous, controversial, and significant military and political events of our time.

During his time in uniform, he learned a number of lessons about life, about how we make decisions and act on them. In The Mission, The Men, and Me, Blaber writes about a number of the missions he conducted and the lessons he learned from them.

The missions were conducted in Montana, Iraq, Bosnia, and Afghanistan. One featured a commander stupidly ordering Blaber to take his men into sure destruction. Another featured some of the first plans to capture Osama Bin Laden, before 9/11. Another included a man in a gorilla suit.

The lessons Blaber draws from these experiences are fascinating and apply to more than military operations. For example, the lesson he drew from the operation featuring the gorilla suit is something I use every day with my writing. Anyone who leads or manages or works in groups will find other critical lessons. This was another book I couldn’t put down. Anyone interested in special forces will love this book.

Not Waving But Drowning

“Not Waving but Drowning” is a poem by female British poet Stevie Smith. It was published in 1957 as part of a collection with the same title. The work is her most famous poem and describes a man whose distressed thrashing in the sea causes onlookers to believe that he is waving to them, not drowning

I hadn’t thought about this poem since I was a student at BYU. Then a local poet read it as part of his remarks at a conference I recently attended. The image and message lingered with me for hours. I thought about it off and on over the following weeks. This is, for me, an incredibly powerful poem. It needs to be read aloud, I think, to be appreciated. Not in some silly way, but with the appropriate feeling. I’m going to record a reading for my website, but you can read it aloud for yourself. Or have someone else do it for you. Then read it again.

Nobody heard him, the dead man,
But still he lay moaning:
I was much further out than you thought
And not waving but drowning.

Poor chap, he always loved larking
And now he’s dead
It must have been too cold for him his heart gave way,
They said.

Oh, no no no, it was too cold always
(Still the dead one lay moaning)
I was much too far out all my life
And not waving but drowning.

How often does this happen? Those onlookers, caring only superficially, thinking it was too cold, thinking he was funning. But it wasn’t too cold. And his heart didn’t give out. He was struggling for his life, and they were too preoccupied to see it.

Too preoccupied to really see. 

I wonder. Is there someone around me, that if I just looked, just paused from my rush, I’d see they were much too far out, and not waving, but drowning.