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By Robert Nagle

Second Life avatar on a bookshelfAlan Fram reports that 27% percent of a respondents in AP poll admit not picking up a book last year. He writes: “Nearly a third of men and a quarter of women fit that category. They tend to be older, less educated, lower income, minorities, from rural areas and less religious.” More details:

“People from the South read a bit more than those from other regions, mostly religious books and romance novels. Whites read more than blacks and Hispanics, and those who said they never attend religious services read nearly twice as many as those who attend frequently.

“There was even some political variety evident, with Democrats and liberals typically reading slightly more books than Republicans and conservatives.

“The Bible and religious works were read by two-thirds in the survey, more than all other categories. Popular fiction, histories, biographies and mysteries were all cited by about half, while one in five read romance novels. Every other genre — including politics, poetry and classical literature — were named by fewer than five percent of readers.
More women than men read every major category of books except for history and biography.”

Just out of curiosity, why is the number of books you read a useful metric nowadays? The concept of literacy is assumed to be very book-specific; why? Here’s some data I would like to know:

  1. How many web pages have you looked at it in the last year? What percent of them were articles or essays or discussions about something (as opposed to YouTube videos)?
  2. How many books did you buy last year?
  3. How many times have you set foot in any kind of bookstore in the last year?
  4. How many books do you have in your bedroom? Living room?
  5. How many DVDs did you watch last year?
  6. How many times have you used your library card in the past year?
  7. How many print magazines do you read in a month?
 
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