Reading is so much more than curated dead trees.
> 21% of U.S. adults are classified as functionally illiterate, unable to complete basic reading tasks.
I don't know, my reaction is "wow, Americans truly love reading," or alternatively, "they really like to boast their numbers even in anonymous surveys."
Even if you only read fiction, 8 books are like 500k to 100k words. That's a lot of words!
Series is really what makes the number so high IMO. I read a lot of fanasy/sci-fi which is often a lot of trilogies. Reading just one trilogy puts you above the median. I have several friends that read only 3-4 books last year, but several that also read as much or more than me. Discussing the books amongst friends helps, as we recommend books to each other. Book-tok and other book-centric social-media circles are huge.
And it may seem like a lot but that was spread across an entire year. I often read a few chapters before bed each night, but it often depends on how hooked I am on the book, I make more time for it when I'm more hooked on a book, or on a deadline to return the book to the library.
Audiobooks helps carry the number higher as well. Its a lot easier to "read" a book when you can do it while doing other things. Although I prefer to sit down and dedicate time for e-books, I do listen to some audiobooks as well, and many of my friends exclusively read via audiobooks.
EDIT: Nvm
A lot of people who say they “read books” really mean they bought one or checked it out from the library, then only dipped into it here and there, maybe a few paragraphs at a time.
I haven’t read a proper book cover to cover in years, probably not since high school. But I do read a lot every single day, either for my job or because I genuinely want to grow professionally. I’ll also read a few chapters from books friends or coworkers recommend, especially the parts that seem most relevant. I just don’t really see why I need to finish the whole thing if I’m already getting what I came for.
My parents, meanwhile, will read the same books over and over again, cover to cover, every year.
Note that this isn't an oblique way to frame your preferences as bad. They're simply a different kind of activity, like how writing commit messages is a different activity than writing a novel. There are different activities even within this definition of "reading". I primarily consume new books. My spouse usually re-reads old ones. One of us is better equipped for literary analysis while the other is better equipped for relatable conversations with normal people, but neither is a more "correct" way to read.
These days when it comes to technical stuff I much more prefer to fill in gaps by reading articles or documentation. Technical books are so long it feels like authors are paid by words.
And when it comes to fiction I have really leaned into audiobooks. My eyes are too tired from computer work, and I can combine audio with other activities like jogging or cooking.
There are some "technical" audiobooks as well, but only a small category of technical books makes sense in the audio format.
But! We take our kids to the library every couple of weeks, and while we do let them check out Nintendo games, they also will each pick a stack of books. So my kids are going through 4-8 books a month. And my wife is part of a book club at the library so she's doing 8-10 in a year at least.
But for myself, I just have a hard time sitting down to do it. By the time I'm done with work and chores, it's late at night, and my brain barely has enough power to handle a TV show.
How do all y'all readers with young kids do it? How do you find the time?
Science fiction and fantasy work well. The Dungeon Crawler Carl books really help my brain take a break without actively disengaging the actual thinking parts.
I feel like I'm doing it wrong (or maybe right?), but I don't have that time. I'm asleep a minute after I lay down. In fact it's been an issue because the kids sometimes want me to lay down with them to fall asleep, and then I fall asleep in their bed!
Take the TV time and trade it for reading a page or two before turning the TV on. I think it just requires some time to adapt to generating a second wave of energy. It won't be there most days.
The alternative is coffee. I did a two month stint of sleeping only 11pm-4a last year (had a single 1.5 yr kid at the time). It was tough and ultimately my body's mechanics started to fail, so I don't recommend that. Now that I have two under 3, I strive for more sleep and therefore only a chapter per week (or a section per week on math/science textbooks).
I retired last year, my wife and I count reading among our hobbies. Our library offers two services that loan ebooks.
I’ll read about 8 or 10 books a month, maybe finishing half. Wifey reads at a ferocious pace, completely reading a book every day or two.
It’s nice.
[1] https://www.thenationalliteracyinstitute.com/2024-2025-liter...
It is a self-reported measure, and it's phrased "read or listened to"--I don't normally think of "listening to audiobooks" when I think about reading, and I can imagine how that might broaden the pool. Other sources (e.g. the NEA survey at [0]) seem to put print book readership closer to 50%.
Though at least one survey [1] points out the wide range of genres that count as books for this purpose: manga, the Bible/Torah/Quran, cookbooks...
[0] https://www.arts.gov/stories/blog/2024/federal-data-reading-... [1] https://gitnux.org/readership-statistics/
I have nothing against audiobooks, but they are not the same as reading. It is a passive consumption of the content. You can daydream or lose focus and the story keeps rolling on. If you lose focus while reading, the story stops. You may find that you've "read" a few sentences, but it's quickly self-correcting.
Additionally, reading forces you to parse tone, interpret context, and resolve syntactic ambiguity on your own. Listening to a narrator removes those tasks.
I think that this door was opened when we started accepting that reading graphic novels was the same as reading a book of text. Rather than elevating new(ish) media for storytelling for their own merit, we've lumped them into another medium that was already deemed "good".
All that said, listening to an audiobook or reading a graphic novel is still better than not reading a book at all.
1: https://today.yougov.com/entertainment/articles/53804-most-a...
https://ygo-assets-websites-editorial-emea.yougov.net/docume...
Yes it includes audiobooks in "books".
physical books were around three times more popular than ebooks or audiobooks.
75% did not read anything to children (kind of surprising 25% of the population has access to pre-literate children)
15% don't read books they own, which is surprisingly high. A third borrowed their books from the library.
54% of the population inaccurately think they "own" an ebook as opposed to reality. 40% "a book you accessed for free online" Sure thats all project gutenberg LOL.
Mysteries and Crime are top of the charts. I have no idea if "computer books" count as 11% other non-fiction or academic or hobbies.
Only 51% have a library card. I know they are cracking down hard at my library, show up physically with proof of residence or it gets cancelled. Its harder to get a library card in my community than to vote, get a job, or register for school, your community may vary.
Most people go to the library less than once a month. This sounds about right.
Shockingly 20% of people never go to the library just to hang out. As a parent of older kids I do that a LOT, drop them off then go silently read or compute or whatever at the library. The attempt at turning libraries from book warehouses into makerspaces seems to not be working very well according to this survey.
People own a surprisingly small number of books. A "large full height bookcase" puts you in the elite. I'm kind of surprised at that.
Virtually no one hoards digital or audio books, I am apparently a far extreme outlier in that regard LOL. I'm easily five figures each. From, uh, totally legit sources.
Most people actually own about two dozen books and think most other people own about twice as many around fifty.
Since I was a little kid I always read a little before bedtime and it seems this is very popular.
Most people don't organize their books but think they have an easy time finding them (not unlike how people organize computer files...)
Surprisingly there is zero to very minimal demographic difference in every category among people who do not read, which I find very surprising and unlikely.
The reduction is from a lot more time spent on educational series on YouTube and other paid video sources. Is it intrinsically bad if I trade 1 book for 10 hours of instructional videos?
BigBalli•3h ago
amilios•1h ago
eloisant•1h ago
secretballot•1h ago
Much of the rest is people who exclusively read very easy books from one or two genres (“romance”, true crime, airport thriller/mystery, young-adult fantasy, and self-help/business-guru, mostly). That’s especially going to dominate the shelves of the set of folks with books-read counts far higher than one per year. Whether that crowd counts much toward a measure of the exercise of quality, general literacy, is a judgement call, but those readers are the engine of what little remains of the market for new books.
(There’s a niche market that’s commercially viable that involves books laser-focused at being optioned for TV or movies, but it’s as cliquish as you’d expect and hard to break into, and of course other genres still support a tiny number of super-stars)