mikeporter

What a shame...

There it sits on your night stand, that book you've meant to read for who knows how long but haven't yet cracked open. Tonight, as you feel its stare from beneath that teetering pile of magazines, know one thing - you are not alone.

One in four adults say they read no books at all in the past year, according to an AP-Ipsos poll released Tuesday. Of those who did read, women and seniors were most avid, and religious works and popular fiction were the top choices.

Reading Habits

dugan

This is what happens when everyone can afford to watch DVDs on a regular basis.

Personally, I really have to apply discipline in order to finish a book. Otherwise I just end up staring at a screen all the time.

mikeporter

Here is more on the same poll...

34 percent of conservatives have not read a book within the past year, compared with 22 percent of liberals and moderates.

By slightly wider margins, Democrats tended to read more books than Republicans and independents. There were no differences by political party in the percentage of those who said they had not read at least one book.

Poll Results

Mhepburn20

Just had to chuckle a bit at this statement. Really? POPULAR fiction was a top choice eh? What a shocker! Maybe next year it will be the unpopular fiction that is suddenly, um, er ... popular. Ridiculous. Breaking news: This just in, the popular choice for movies this year were the ones people went to or purchased the most.

DVD Josh

Which raises another point - is popular fiction even considered real reading?

Drop

Sure, Rowling and Stephen King are popular writers and they have written some classic works. Of course there is shit, but that's just inevitable.

Besides any reading is usually better than no reading. Unless it's like the Bratz book or something.

Pointyskull

I love watching movies, but there's nothing quite like settling in nightly with a good book. Those folks who don't just don't know what they're missing...

MScottM

Books exercise YOUR imagination. Movies are an extension of some else's imagination. I love movies but would find life truly boring without books.

dugan

Why not? Whether or not a book is considered "popular fiction" depends far more on its marketing than its content. I've seen the same books marketed as recycled pulp by one publisher and as literary fiction by another.

djmont

As opposed to what -- the kind where your lips move?

boredsilly

It all comes down to that age old argument about quality literature and whatnot. I think it is good to sit down and tackle some acclaimed and classic works of fiction, but life is too short to force yourself to read things you don't want to.

It is sad that so many don't read. I wish I read more, but to not read at all? That just boggles my mind. When it comes to entertainment there is nothing, absolutely nothing, that is like getting lost in a good book. No movie, game, television show, play, etc can touch it IMHO.

milo bloom

I'm lucky that I can read on my lunch our at work. When I'm really going, I can do a book in week and half, sometimes less. Most of it is stuff like Star Wars, Star Trek, Harry Potter, but I mix in some Dickens and other "classics" every other book.

kvrdave

Hmmmm, looks like unpopular fiction did quite poorly.

I wonder if that poll takes into account audio books. That is probably a minute amount of people, but I know I listen to more than I read, just because I do a lot of driving.

djmont

If 3 out of 4 people really read a book last year, I'm damn impressed. That doesn't sound like a bad number to me at all.

boredsilly

I listen to loads of audiobooks at work when I'm not listening to podcasts, but listening is not reading. You still use your imagination and all, but audiobooks are passive like TV, while reading is active. So I don't think the benefits are exactly the same. I could be wrong though.

Since I read so slow, I tend to go for the audiobook version if it exists, so that I spend my time reading books that don't have the audio options. I'm just a sucker for stories and I try to squeeze in as many as I can.

Ms. M

I agree that 3 out of 4 reading a book is pretty good and not a reason for alarm. I doubt that the figure has been higher in previous decades.

I do substitute teaching and getting many of the kids in my English classes to read anything, even when they can choose their books, is such a challenge. A lot of people simply don't like reading.

DonnachaOne

It's on the same level as "pop music" - popular music. I'd say it's popular fiction as opposed to genre stuff, like the people who only read fantasy, or only read Koontz & King, or Young Adult fiction, that sort of thing.

djmont

Genre fiction and the like is what they mean by "popular" fiction (i.e., as opposed to "serious" fiction). Basically, it's anything people want to read -- thrillers, romance, chick lit, SF --rather than the stuff they're "supposed" to read.

I always find it curious this concept that because something is popular, it's necessarily lousy. It's such an elitist notion (and not elitist in a good way).

(It is a vestige, I believe, of the country's Puritan heritage, in which it was believed that something that is entertaining can't possibly be good for you. This notion of popular vs. serious fiction is far less pronounced in Europe.)

A book might be good, it might be bad -- but that's true of every kind of book, whether it's a mystery or a bildungsroman. The type of book doesn't determine its quality. The book itself does that.

flair

Based on how many people that tell me they never read, I figured it would have been 1 in 4 that DO read books. I find 3 out of 4 to be a pretty good number.

Charlie Goose

Yes, surprising. I would've guessed the number to be much lower than 75%.

Randy Miller III

Do movies with subtitles count?

slop101

Yeah, that surprised me too - I would've guessed that less than half of Americans read a single book last year - so this news (if true) is kind of promising. Though most of those books might turn out to be some cheezy romance novel or a Dan Brown book...

movieking

Agreed. I thought that the total would be far less than 3 out of 4 read books.

terrycloth

im another one thats amazed that the percentage is so high.

maybe since im in a circle of people who i doubt ever picked up anything but car magazines or the three or four people iv got to sit down and read guts in haunted to try and push a book on em.

djmont

Couldn't disagree more. It's better to read anything, even cereal boxes, than nothing. Besides, once you start deciding what people should read, or what is "appropriate reading," then you're talking about thought control.

Even if people read "garbage" -- and I suspect what we all consider garbage would differ -- there's always the hope that they will be intrigued enough to move on to more "serious" reading.