Tuesday, August 29, 2017

Top Circulating: Biography

The Yellow Books, 1887 . Fine Art. Encyclopædia Britannica ImageQuest. Web. 18 May 2016.
http://quest.eb.com/search/108_303306/1/108_303306/cite
“Knowledge is like money: To be of value it must circulate, and in circulating it can increase in quantity and, hopefully, in value.”
― Louis L'Amour, Education of a Wandering Man  

In the library, "circulation" means a lot of things.  What's sometimes called the "library card desk" is also known as "circulation".  When we look at a book's record, we count how many times it has checked out as its "circs". The library's collection floats (items checked out at one branch and returned at another stay at the branch at which they are returned), but its items circulate.

Some surprises for us on on our top circulating biography list! Many are new, but there are some that have been out quite a while. Keep in mind when you peruse this list that some books written about specific people are not shelved in the Biography section (i.e., not filed under Biography and the subject's last name) - for example, a new biography called Goethe: Life as a Work of Art is filed in the 800s (Literature, in Dewey Decimal Classification); Bruce Springsteen's memoir, Born to Run, is in the 700s (Arts & Recreation); and a biography of Guy Burgess, Stalin's Englishman, is filed in the 300s (Social Sciences).


Top Circulating Biography

1.  Prince Charles by Sally Bedell Smith
2. Al Franken by Al Franken
3. The Secrets of My Life by Caitlyn Jenner
4. The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot
5. Coach Wooden and Me  by Kareem Abdul-Jabbar
6. Settle For More by Megyn Kelly
7. Teacher Man  by Frank McCourt
8. Grace Notes by Katey Sagal
9. Cravings by Judy Collins
10. Charlton Heston by Marc Eliot
11. Bossypants by Tina Fey
12. Black Lotus by Sil Lai Abrams
13. No Life For a Lady by Agnes Morley Cleaveland
14. A Life in Parts by Bryan Cranston
15. Unbroken by Laura Hillenbrand
16. Tell Me Everything You Don’t Remember by Christine Hyung-Oak Lee
17. Are You Anybody? by Jeffrey Tambor
18. Portraits of Courage by George W. Bush
19. Ernest Hemingway by Mary V. Dearborn
20. Being a Dad Is Weird by Ben Falcone
21. Richard Nixon by John A. Farrell
22. Dig If You Will the Picture by Ben Greenman
23. The Last Lion, Winston Spencer Churchill by William Manchester
24 Elizabeth Bishop by Megan Marshall
25. Pioneer Girl by Laura Ingalls Wilder
 

What's a good biography you've read recently? Did you find one as riveting as Salvador Dalí seemed to find his own (below)?

Salvador Dali reading his biography, 6 May, 1959. Photograph. Britannica ImageQuest, Encyclopædia Britannica, 25 May 2016.
quest.eb.com/search/102_533903/1/102_533903/cite. Accessed 4 Aug 2017.

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