Last year, 4 out of every 10 grown ups in America didn't finish a single book. But a small group, about 1 in 10 people, read 25 or more books. That small group read so much that they probably account for about half of all the books read in the whole country. So basically, a few people are doing almost all the reading, while most people are barely reading at all.

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sumizeit

30 comments

  2. Interesting. I am in the 6-9 range every year and feel like an outlier. Almost no one around me reads at all.

  4. I got an e-reader for Christmas and I’ve gone from reading one or two books a year to reading 9 books this year so far

    Edit: we had a newborn baby earlier this year too so I’ve had a lot of time sitting in a rocking chair in the dark holding a baby. Perfect time to read, and an ereader makes it sooo much easier.

  5. Reading is a hobby. Every hobby will look something like this, with most people not doing the hobby at all and the ones that like the hobby doing it the most. 

  6. surveys are notoriously wrong about reading rates because so many people lie. i would personally be shocked if an actual majority of americans read >0 book in the last year, the 40% are just the honest ones.

  7. I just listen to them. No time to read but I am up to over 100 so far this year of listening.

  8. I’m at 26, was never much of a reader but I’ve really been enjoying graphic novels. I’ve also started reading Dungeon Crawler Carl recently

  10. See, the Gross Domestic Reading per Capita is around 6/person! We’re a great nation of bookworms! /s

  11. I used to be a big book reader. My book consumption has gone way, way down. I read long, multi-part articles but I’m definitely dragging down the numbers.

  12. This is probably about what most hobbies look like. Honestly I am surprised it’s only 40% read zero, and I say this as a person with more than one bookshelf with books on it.

  15. Same is roughly true for alcoholics in the US, I believe. Top 10% consume 50% of the alcohol, and about 30% abstain completely.

  16. I love reading and usually read probably 10 to 20 a year but I don’t really understand the doomer logic about reading. You could read 100 horrible books and it’s a net bad for humanity situation. Haha

  17. I wouldn’t be surprised if the logarithmic drop off wasn’t even greater.

    I would imagine 5% of people read 90% of books (voracious romance/fantasy/scifi/genre readers) then another 5% read two to ten books a year (non-fiction/fiction mixed readers). And then 90% of people don’t read a single book year after year. And half of that 90% when surveyed think, “Well… I read twitter every day, and I bet that adds up to a book…” and say they read a book when they didn’t. And 40% of people are honest about it.

  18. I want more statistics.

    I suspect the most educated people read less books per year than they used to. I suspect they’re reading more data based stuff online in recent years, which they used to read about in books.

    I suspect people under 16 years old, and adult women reading smut account for the vast majority of people reading 25+ books a year.

    This chart kind of implies people are getting dumber. But we don’t have all the information. Adding age, education level, and how these numbers have changed over the years would give a much clearer picture.

  19. Ever since I incorporated physical book reading into my nightly wind-down routine, I’ve read dozens more books per year.

  20. 60% having read at least one book last year is far higher than I would have thought. probably not an actual novel for adults.

  21. I used to be a ravenous reader as a kid. Still a bit through college but not as much. Now, I might read one book every year or two. For some reason, I just don’t have the stamina anymore. I might read a few pages a day but then once I get 50 – 70 pages in, I just lose the interest/desire.

  22. I guess my question would be, “Are there reasons why you might expect reading books to not roughly follow a Pareto distribution?”

    Recursively applying the 80/20 rule I get:

    51% of people read 1% of the books and 10% of the people read 90% of the books, so the Pareto Principle would suggest that the numbers should be far more extreme and it is pretty positive that the top 10% is only accounting for about half!

    That said, I’m unsure how well [you.gov](http://you.gov) polls really map to reality…?

  23. the people who don’t read books and are insecure about it get really upset in these comment sections lol

  24. I set a challenge to ready 30 books this year. I’m halfway through, just finished book 15.

    My experience is that reading is a skill like any other. It takes time to build concentration and routine but you get better at it with commitment. Just like taking up something like jogging.

  25. I can read roughly 1-2 books a year because of my dyslexia lol. It takes SO LONG to read anything. Last year I read Red Alert and Annihilation, Annihilation took me 8 months.

  27. Please don’t interpret this as illiteracy. I’m a doctor who practice anesthesia. I have read zero book last year. It doesn’t mean anything.

    I have been reading multiple newspaper articles a day. Also a tons of scientific articles. But no books.

  28. Do children’s books count? Because then I’m at like 500. I wonder how many of the people at 25 plus are parents of young children. 

  29. I was in the zero book camp for most of my adult life. Last summer, I decided to check out my library instead of picking up another game, ended up reading 20 books between June and New Year’s, and this year I’m up to 25 already.

    Everyone has their hobbies. Honestly, reading doesn’t seem as “intellectual” as it used to anyway, so it’s not like tons of people *not* reading is necessarily a bad thing.

  30. I feel like 40% is waaaay too low. Many people lie about the number of books they read. They know it sounds bad to say 0, so they make up a number.

    Source: I am a librarian.

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