FOR the second year in a row, a story set in Missisippi has proved most popular among visitors to the borough’s libraries.

Bury Council has revealed the top 10 most borrowed books from its libraries in 2013 and Lee Child’s detective thriller The Affair came out on top.

The book, which is the latest in the Jack Reacher series, is set in Mississippi, as was last year’s chart topper The Help, written by Kathryn Stockett.

Child has 38 copies of the book in Bury’s libraries and they were borrowed 395 times up until the end of November.

The Affair was closely followed by Markus Zusak’s novel The Book Thief, which was borrowed 332 times and tells the story of a nine-year-old girl who fears for her future in Nazi Germany.

In third place was The Drop, by Michael Connelly (borrowed 329 times) and, in fourth, Jeffrey Archer proved he can still pen a good tale with the success of his book The Sins of the Father (317).

John Grisham took fifth place with The Litigators (277) while Martina Cole’s book The Faithless (273) was in sixth.

Tess Gerritsen’s novel The Silent Girl (260) was next, followed by Kill Alex Cross by James Patterson (258), The Promise by Lesley Pearse (253) and The Great Gatsby by Scott Fitzgerald (253).

Overall, James Patterson was the most-borrowed author, as his books were taken out 6,478 times in the first 11 months of the year — way in front of second-placed Julia Donaldson, whose books were taken out 2,990 times.

Next came Nora Roberts (2,571), Anna Jacobs (2,014), Danielle Steel (1,938), Lee Child (1,904), Ian Whybrow (1,892), Michael Connelly (1,873), Francesca Simon (1,837) and Jacqueline Wilson (1,664).

In the DVD charts, a Judi Dench comedy proved to be the most popular among library visitors.

The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel was borrowed 263 times from Bury’s libraries in the first 11 months of this year and War Horse, starring Emily Watson, was second, borrowed 244 times.

In third was The Women in Black (197), followed by Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows (193), The Hunger Games (189), The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo (178), The Descendants (178), Prometheus (174), Adventures of Tintin: The Secret of the Unicorn (167) and Salmon Fishing in the Yemen (167).