James recently linked to a big page of publishing statistics. These are the ones that shocked me:
- One-third of high school graduates never read another book for the rest of their lives. Many do not even graduate from high school.
- 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.
- 57% of new books are not read to completion.
42% of college graduates never read another book? That’s astonishing. I suppose those numbers explain why selling 5000 copies of your novel makes you a ‘best seller’ in Canada.
UPDATE: I see that this was originally on Boing Boing, and there are considerable caveats to these numbers. This National Endowment for the Arts study (PDF) has more reliable numbers, which aren’t quite so shocking (but they ain’t great, either).
DarrenBarefoot.com 
I know I’ve made judgments about people based on the number of books I see in their houses. Well, more specifically, if I don’t see any books. I find that weird.
I once had a friend in high school whose mother was proud that she’d never read a book in her life. She’d gotten through high school herself by exchanging her English assignments for others’ art projects. She berated her son for his interest in reading, can you believe that? She seemed to think it was a waste of time, plus how could anyone remember where they were in a story after putting the book down?
Oh, and there was the time I was dating a guy, until the point where I found out he’d only read one book the whole way through, that being Catch-22 for a college English class. There ended that romance.
When I first saw this, I found those numbers pretty amazing, myself. I then realized that even though I’ve been “reading” on the average of about six hours a day, for the past ten years, I haven’t read a book since ’96, either.
I’m sure that the increase in electronic books and reading things online has something to do with those statistics (as is my reason), but the results from both of those studies only focus on “published” books.
I don’t actually find these stats shocking. In the area where I grew up (see past thread on evil UNICEF situation reading was kind of a weird thing to do. The only people I knew who read were “smart” people and reasonably intelligent upper-middle class people (not always the same people). I didn’t see many “average” people reading. I think that, for those who grow up in a bigger city (like Vancouver and the burbs), there’s more polarization of the population. So people think they are middle class, but they are actually upper-middle and they almost never interact with lower, lower-middle and even middle-middle members of society. And thus it kinda seems shocking to learn that other people don’t read. I don’t mean this as a “poor people are student” comment. It’s more of a cultural thing.
I judge people based on their bookshelves. I surreptiously skim over titles, and if I like what I see, I tell them that I judge them based on their bookshelves, and that I like them more now. 🙂
This stat: “One-third of high school graduates never read another book for the rest of their lives. Many do not even graduate from high school.”
…am I the only one reading that as “Many high school graduates do not graduate from high school” and thinking “huh”.
80% of US families did not buy or read a book last year
That’s the one that stunned me. Adults, maybe, but kids? Not even in school? That doesn’t seem possible.
It would be interesting to see how many families have library cards and use them on a regular basis. Why buy a book if you can get it for free or nearly so at the library. I usually only buy books that I know I will read multiple times.
Darren: I doubt you have time to read books anymore. Do you?
Brian: I read a lot more slowly and selectively than I used to. At the moment I’m reading “The Long Tail” by Chris Anderson, and I’ve got “Synthetic Worlds” by Edward Castranovo on the back burner. I also listen to a lot of audio books–I’m working my way through Douglas Adams’s ouevre.
I’m not surprised iether, simply because there are so many other sources of written word. In a way I think this points more to a lack of time spent on reading for pleasure, especially in a work driven American population. I would like to beleive the Canadian stats would be more positive.
Also arent’t the first two points the same, and how can a highschool graduate not graduate (1st point).
Maybe everyone’s too busy reading the Bible to read anything else?