No one reads anymore! (Well, not really.)

The Washington Post headline scares ya! Boo-YA!

ONE IN FOUR READ NO BOOKS LAST YEAR

If I had to guess, I would've put it higher. In fact, I wouldn't be surprised to learn that 50% of Americans didn't read any books last year. If 75% of the public is still reading books, isn't that good news? I guess not:

One in four adults read no books at all in the past year, according to an Associated Press-Ipsos poll released Tuesday. Of those who did read, women and older people were most avid, and religious works and popular fiction were the top choices.

The survey reveals a nation whose book readers, on the whole, can hardly be called ravenous. The typical person claimed to have read four books in the last year -- half read more and half read fewer. Excluding those who hadn't read any, the usual number read was seven.

Way down in the story are the real numbers:

The publishing business totaled $35.7 billion in global sales last year, 3 percent more than the previous year, according to the Book Industry Study Group, a trade association. About 3.1 billion books were sold, an increase of less than 1 percent.

The actual poll results and demographic breakdowns are interesting; they can be downloaded here.

Comments

[Ron Franscell]

Americans' reading habits are just more evidence of our laziness, which seems to grow boundlessly. We prefer the simple, passive processes of information consumption, and are willing to sacrifice a little bit of imagination for the convenience. Our much-vaunted American obesity isn't just physical, but it's apparently intellectual and spiritual, as well. I blogged on this one, too, at http://underthenews.blogspot.com.

[tisdale]

I'm too busy reading blogs!

[Rabbit]

Up here in Canada, we have a chain called Chapters, which is similar to Barnes & Noble in the U.S. There were such high hopes for it when it opened -- along with its sister Indigo -- because, of course, it was going to use those huge spaces to bring us all manner of offbeat, small-press, hard-to-find books.

Yeah. Just like when the multi-screen theaters opened, and they would show brand-new blockbusters on two screens, and the other four would be reserved for art, foreign, classic and rarely-scene movies. We all know how that worked out.

My local Chapters is still, admittedly, an awesome resource for magazines, especially some of the very hard-to-find literary magazines. Amazingly enough, our government even FUNDS these, which still floors me.

But ... every time I go in there, the tables of Dr. Phil and Harry Potter and What Color Is Your Aura This Week are multiplying, and moving deeper into the store. And the section selling candles, soap, baby toys, gardening items, boxed cookies, iPods and wrapping paper is four times the size it was six months ago, and it's destined to grow larger.

The last six times I've gone in there looking for a book that wasn't really offbeat, but wasn't on the best-seller lists, I came up empty. I was able to order them through the company's Web site, but still ... the last time, I could have bought one of 200 different diet books, but only two titles by John Steinbeck. Go figure.

[Geoff]

I bet the percentage would drop significantly if the survey asked people how many books they read "not counting the Bible."

[Noelle]

I guess I'm making up for a lot of folks who don't read with my recent tallies. I'm on book 74 for this year and finished 124 books last year. :D