I look forward to writing this column every year. I love seeing which titles were most popular and what was sought after. It helps me get a glimpse into what the interests are here in Juniata County. I’m always surprised to see an item on the list that I wouldn’t have imagined to be as popular as it turned out to be. Conversely, I find it interesting that some books or authors are missing from the list.

Below I list our top 10 most circulated books:

“The Ex” by Freida McFadden (20 circulations)

“Broken Country” by Clare Leslie Hall (20 circulations)

“Ward D” by Freida McFadden (19 circulations)

“The Coworker” by Freida McFadden (18 circulations)

“The Inmate” by Freida McFadden (18 circulations)

“Far From Home” by Danielle Steel (18 circulations)

“One By One” by Freida McFadden (17 circulations)

“The Locked Door” by Freida McFadden (17 circulations)

“Lie For A Million” by Janet Dailey (17 circulations)

“Islands and Enemies” by Marianna Hering (17 circulations)

In 2024, Freida McFadden had three of the top five most checked out books. The other two were by Colleen Hoover, who had the most checked-out book in 2023 and 2022. Hoover’s popularity seems to have dipped, as “Regretting You” was her most checked out book in 2025, with only 12 circulations.

Some other fun facts from 2025

We processed 678 new passport applications in 2025. This is our all-time high in the three years we have been processing passports.

48,558 print books were checked out in 2025, up from 44,193 in 2024 (10% increase).

We added 2,017 new items to the library’s collection in 2025.

There were 42,057 visits to the library in 2025, up from 40,805 in 2024 (3% increase).

We issued 563 new library cards in 2025, up from 482 in 2024 (16% increase). There are currently 8,203 Juniata County Library cardholders.

The library was open 1,750 hours in 2025.

Our mobile hotspots were borrowed 367 times in 2025, up from 339 in 2024 (8% increase). Mobile hotspots let you have Wi-Fi wherever there is cell phone service. They can be borrowed for two weeks for $20, four weeks for $30 or three months for $75.

The public computers were used 1,457 times in 2025.

I’m still waiting for some statistics to be tallied, so check back in my future columns for more fun facts from 2025.

Book of the week!

If you are going to read one book, give this one a try…

“False Witness” by Phillip Margolin

(New adult fiction: novel, crime and legal thriller) ~ 304 pages.

In a nutshell: The murder of a skeezy financial adviser sparks questions that aim everywhere you can imagine in Multnomah County, Oregon.

To hear dimwitted Jack Blackburn tell it, Billy Kramer, the chauffeur to Terrance Cogen, asked him to take Billy’s girlfriend, Cindy, home from a bar in Cogen’s Jaguar because Billy was drunk, and when Jack returned to the bar to drop off the Jag, Billy wasn’t there. That’s important because a beer glass found inside Cogen’s home with Jack’s prints links him to what turns out to be a murder scene.

The case is assigned to attorney Karen Wyatt, who, ever since she was framed for professional misconduct, disbarred, jailed for a year, freed, reinstated, and awarded a hefty settlement, has had an eye out for other defendants in the frame. There’s no shortage of alternative suspects. Apart from all the clients Cogen swindled, his fourth wife, Rosemarie, is delighted to be spared the trouble and expense of divorcing him. And Oregon Congressman Thomas Horan, who’d gone missing just before the murder, produces the world’s unlikeliest alibi: He’d been abducted by aliens who kept him in their custody that night.

Karen and her investigator, Morris Johnson, the ex-cop who arrested her four years ago, quickly tie Cogen’s misdeeds to Walter Zegda, the sociopathic second-in-command of the gang Lucifer’s Disciples. But they’re forced to tread carefully by the news that the Disciples have a mole in the Multnomah D.A.’s office and a dying message from a Disciple in the know that seems utterly useless in identifying that mole. The final surprise isn’t all that surprising, but readers who’ve been caught up in all those complications won’t mind.

Bottom line: A stand-alone with as much energy as Margolin’s franchise tales of defense attorney Robin Lockwood.

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Vince Giordano has been the librarian and director of the Juniata County Library since 2015.