One in Four Americans Don't Read a Book At All

1. johnald
   August 22nd, 2007 at 5:01 am

   religious works being a top choice is worrying, plus they should also be included as 'popular fiction'.

2. Sid Morrison
   August 22nd, 2007 at 7:29 am

   Frankly, I'm surprised (and a bit skeptical) we faired as well as we did...

   To be sure, the poll wasn't conducted very well, or at least the article that reports its results was poorly written. The poll should be structured such that it counts people who COMPLETED books. Asking folks if they "read books" is taken by many to include "reading from books", which isn't the same thing.

   I think religious works are fine to be counted as long as the survey results aren't skewed (and I think they may be) by someone occasionally reading a few passages or a chapter out of the Bible (or whatever) and counting that as "reading a book last year". Even secular humanists could benefit from reading the Bible as literature, but a chapter here and there isn't good enough to count as "I read a book last year". Decent pollsters should have realized that their poll would be susceptible to such skews and would have worked hard at structuring the questions to avoid that. The article gives no evidence that they did.

   Straight talk from Sid.

3. Jerse
   August 22nd, 2007 at 9:24 am

   I've currently been reading the same book for the past 8 months. Sometimes when I have nothing to do I'll read it. But for the most part I read the newspaper every morning, and internet articles, and whatever I can find that piques my interest.

   In other words, you don't have to "read books" to be identified as a reader...

4. Dave
   August 22nd, 2007 at 10:02 am

   I find that I read fewer bound books and more ebooks as time goes on. How exactly did they define "books" for this survey?

5. DCer
   August 22nd, 2007 at 10:31 am

   I have only been able to complete one book for fun in the last year. Everything else I read for work, was nonfiction, or related.

   However I read one "book" to my kids every night if not more. I would never count reading to someone else as reading, so I'm not sure how this should work.

6. Bryan
   August 22nd, 2007 at 11:16 am

   You can't read non-fiction for fun? Geez, 90% of my pleasure reading is non-fiction.

7. Dave A
   August 22nd, 2007 at 12:04 pm

   Interesting that the current approval rating of our president is also about 1 in 4. I wonder if there's a correlation?

8. Miss Cellania
   August 22nd, 2007 at 12:07 pm

   Just about all my reading is nonfiction, and it's fun!

9. Iamnivek
   August 22nd, 2007 at 12:09 pm

   Do I read novels, not very often. Do I read. Yes every day. Pages and pages of news articles, blogs, and other intersting items. Why Do I have to read a steven king novel to be considered a reader?

10. L
    August 22nd, 2007 at 12:56 pm

    I read lots of stuff every day! Most of it's online, though...

    I wonder how many of the people who don't read CAN'T read. Did they include that in their survey? It can't be much fun to sit down with a 500-page novel if you're functionally illiterate.

11. Barbara
    August 22nd, 2007 at 11:45 pm

    I read at least three books a week. I watch very little TV--The Daily Show, The Colbert Report, Battlestar Gallactica, the occasional program on the History Channel. I'd much rather read. I read mostly fiction, but about 10% is non-fiction. Oh, yeah. I read books in two languages.

    My daughters read, my sons-in-law read, my grandchildren read--even the four-year-old reads.

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