Fiction

Are You An “Above Average” Reader?

A couple of weeks ago, The Pew Research Center released a study about the reading habits of Americans, specifically focused on ereading and total reading. There’s a lot of interest here, but one particular statistic stood out to me: the number of books read last year by the people who read at least one book. Here are Pew’s results: All told, those book readers consumed a mean (average) of 15 books in the previous 12 months and a median (midpoint) of 6 books — in other words, half had read fewer than six and half had read more than six. That breaks down as follows:
  • 7% of Americans ages 16 and older read one book in the previous 12 months
  • 14% had read 2-3 books in that time block
  • 12% had read 4-5 books in that time block
  • 15% had read 6-10 books in that time block
  • 13% had read 11-20 books in that time block
  • 14% had read 21 or more books in that time block Naturally, I wondered how Book Riot’s readers compared to the average reader. This form is now closed.