Goldfields Library data from last year shows the region’s most popular read was Make Me by British author Lee Child. 

The novel is the 20th in a series about rogue military investigator Jack Reacher.  

Two more of the writer’s books – Personal and The Affair – also made the list, at numbers six and 15.

But Australian authors were not neglected. Four native writers – all women – were represented in the 20 most borrowed works of fiction.

Di Morrissey took second place with Rain Music, while Jane Harper’s The Dry and Charlotte Wood’s The Natural Way of Things also featured. So too did The Memory Artist, by Melbourne’s Katherine Brabon.  

Surely thanks to its film adaptation, Rosalie Ham’s gothic The Dressmaker took fifth spot, 16 years after it was first published.

Senior librarian Robin Pearson said the statistics were proof readers were interested in homegrown stories.

“The world is changing and we are starting to become more tribal,” he said.

“We have a strong sense of Australian identity, and people want to read about that.”

But when it came to non-fiction, it was cookbooks that dominated. 

Titles from celebrity chefs Nigella Lawson, Jamie Oliver and Stephanie Alexander all scored a mention, while controversial paleo diet advocate Pete Evans came in at number eight with The Complete Gut Health Cookbook.

But Australian female writers also had success in the factual genre, with comedian Magda Szubanski’s memoir Reckoning earning top spot. 

An autobiography from domestic violence campaigner Rosy Batty also featured on the list.  

“They’re not the biographies we used to expect: the refugee made good, the writer describing their life as a writer,” Mr Pearson said.