“Hunger Games” leads the charts as the most downloaded book in February

Posted March 7, 2012 in eBook News and Help, General

Suzanne Collins’ “The Hunger Games” trilogy occupied the top three spots in lists of Most Downloaded Juvenile Fiction Audiobooks for the United States, Canada and Australia.

I’m going to do my best prognosticating in a moment, but first let me hit a few mainstays. Holding steady over the past two months were “The Hunger Games” trilogy and “War Horse,” both of which pulled off the rare feat of occupying space in all four Most Downloaded lists! The Games have entrapped the top three spots in each Juvenile Fiction Audiobook list except the U.K., where they hold spaces two through four. Holding the No. 1 spot? You guessed it: “War Horse.” Michael Morpurgo’s World War 1 adventure had another good month; it was the No. 4 Audiobook in the U.S., Canada and Australia.

Surprisingly, these two titles weren’t the only ones to make all four international download lists. “Three Cups of Tea” by Greg Mortenson is five years old and just making its debut onto the Most Downloaded list, but it is doing so with four lumps of sugar, so to speak. The juvenile nonfiction Audiobook title is No. 3 in the U.K., No. 2 in both Canada and the U.S., and all the way up at No. 1 in Australia.

A couple of new eBook titles sheepishly snuck their way into Canada last month, and I expect they’ll make some more noise around the lists moving forward. Susan Cain’s “Quiet” and Katherine Boo’s “Behind the Beautiful Forevers” both hit the Canadian Adult Nonfiction eBook list last month, coming in at Nos. 6 and 7, respectively. Cain also made the U.S. list, where “Quiet” currently ranks No. 9.
Sophie Kinsella’s “I’ve Got Your Number” also debuted last month, and while she’s only on one list (Adult Fiction Audiobooks), she exploded onto that scene at No. 1. Since I went out on a bit of a limb with my previous forecast, I’ll go ahead and bring Sophie with me. She’ll be an even hotter commodity next month.

As we transition into the second quarter, more content excitement should shift our lists in a display of worldwide wizardry, and just in the nick of time. I don’t have any crystal, but when I asked my Magic 8 Ball if I could expect exciting developments, I got a very telling answer: “It is decidedly so.” We’ll see whose predictions are more accurate when the numbers come out for March.

Jason Sockel is a Collection Development Associate at OverDrive.