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A study last year found that approximately a quarter of American adults in haven’t read a single book in the last year. (Pew Research Center, Sept. 2016)

I grew up in a family of avid readers, and my own little family is too—complete with children sneaking flashlights into bed to read the end of Harry Potter after bedtime. So part of me is a little appalled that 1 out of every 4 people hasn’t read a book in the past year. Not because I think it’s a bad thing, but I just feel like they’re missing out! Pleasure-wise, reading a good book is right up there with eating chocolate. Or petting bunnies.

It makes me wonder if a quarter of the people I know haven’t read a book in the last year.

And of course, this study only talked about print books, ebooks and audiobooks. I wonder if the study were to take into account online reading, how much that would change things?

I don’t ever read fiction online. (Notice I’m resisting the urge to add in a joke here about claims made by politicians/news outlets/interest groups… 🙂 ) But I do a huge percentage of my non-fiction reading online. If I need to learn about what fires made from dried dung patties smell like (um, hypthetically…), I google it.

The Pew Research Center seems like a reliable source, but do you see this reflected in your own lives? Are a quarter of your coworkers, friends, family or acquaintances non-book-readers?

I have a suspicion that since every single person getting this email reads books, that the findings might be skewed – that we book-readers might surround ourselves with other book readers, but the last poll was so fun, it seemed like an interesting thing to find out.

So, do you think that a quarter of the people around you haven’t read a book in the past year?

You can vote below. And if none of those answers fit, leave a comment!

-Janice

PS- For those of you who I know are wondering, the internet says dung fires smell grassy. Not dung-y.

 

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