I found these statistics on reading (thanks to Ron and Andrea, and O'DonnellWeb), which came from a larger group of stats found here, at ParaPublishing. If these are accurate, then:
58% of the US adult population never reads another book after high school.
42% of college graduates never read another book.
80% of US families did not buy or read a book last year.
70% of US adults have not been in a bookstore in the last five years.
6 comments:
How very, very sad.
I knew that I was more than holding up my share of the burden of keeping bookstores in business! I also know that most of the people I know consider me to be slightly, well what shall we call it: odd, obsessive, fanatical, or something like that, about books and reading. They think it's an outcome of having been an English major. Actually, I think I was an English major because I'm a bibliophile. Unfortunately, as you probably note, I'm still not a perfect at comma placement, but I certainly do my share to keep authors royalty checks rolling in.
How do all those people live?!?!
The 80% figure is the scariest of all. Good grief, no wonder people look at us book lovers strangely so often! Great to find your blog (through LaPaz).
I just wanted to point out that these figures are popping up on blogs all over the web and may not be accurate. I have yet to find a link to a source, only links to the same posting on another blog.
As someone who has written about these and similar statistics, I believe the source is the 2004 "Reading at Risk" report by the National Endowment for the Arts. The complete report is available at www.nea.gov/pub/ReadingAtRisk.pdf.
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