Saturday, December 29, 2012

I Beat the Average

Daily News Talks: Start Boasting How Well-Read You Are If You Finished Six Books In 2012: Start Boasting How Well-Read You Are If You Finished Six Books In 2012, The Pew Research Center has unveiled its stats on the United States’ reading habits in 2012, revealing that 75 percent of Americans aged 16 and above read at least one book this year. That figure includes printed books, audio books and e-books, an increasingly popular medium. 

Readers polished off an average 15 books apiece, a number that was clearly bumped up by voracious bookworms because the median number of books consumed was six. (In other words, half of all readers finished more than six books, and the other half read fewer than six). There’s still time left in the year to squeeze in a few more tomes and bump up your tally – we just hope you’re a fast reader.

Hat tip to Beth Feyden.

6 comments:

George said...

I'm always shocked (though I shouldn't be) by how little my students read. In my BUSINESS SYSTEM course a few years ago I had my students reading Charles Dicken's BLEAK HOUSE. At the end of the course, one student told me: "This is the first book I ever read completely. I loved it!" Ah, the power of Dickens...

Kelly Robinson said...

I work in a bookstore, and only a small number of our employees actually read. Oh, they BUY books a-plenty, but there are only a handful of us that actually crack them open and finish them.

Deb said...

Might I venture to suggest that the numbers are skewed higher this year by the 50 Shades of Grey phenom. I have friends who say those books are the first ones they've read in years.

/Sad but true.

Rick Robinson said...

As my new post says... I read 110 this year. I feel sorry for young people who don't read.

Deb Nance at Readerbuzz said...

I am encouraged by the results of this poll. Not sure I believe it (75% of all Americans read a book last year?) but let's hope it is true.

Anonymous said...

Deb, GMTA. After reading this (and the NY Times Book Review coming out tomorrow, which shows FIFTY SHADES was #1 for 28 straight weeks) I wondered aloud if the people who read FIFTY SHADES are among those reading only a book or two a year.

I know people who seem otherwise intelligent and nice yet who admit that they never read books. Fortunately I came from a household where my mother always read voraciously and my father started reading more after he retired. He got a Kindle this year at 88 and when we were in Arizona I was telling him what to download. (Like most of us he prefers "real books" by the way.)

Jeff M.