how many books did you read last year? according to a colleague, if you read 5 or more, you joined only 1% of americans! yeah, apparently only 1% of americans read 5 books a year. i found that number a) alarming and b) hard to believe. but as i started to think of it, i was having a hard time thinking of what i had read in the past year. (i mean beyond stuff that i have to read for work - which is a stinking boatload of stuff!)

i decided to do some websearching to see if i could confirm or deny this statistic. i didn’t spend to much time on it and didn’t find those specific numbers, but did find the following:

Only 32% of the U.S. population has ever been in a bookstore.
42% of U.S. college graduates never read another book.
58% of the U.S. adult population never reads another book after high school.
70% of U.S. adults have not been in a bookstore in the last five years.
80% of U.S. families did not buy or read a book last year.

i don’t know about you, but i find those statistics a little depressing. we are tied for 1st place with 21 other countries with a 99.9% literacy rate, but over half of high school graduates never read another book? here’s a map of literacy rates around the world (source):

of course, literacy rates measure the ability to read and write in general, not the ability or inclination to pick up a book and read it. indeed there are other forms of written materials that are read everyday besides books: newspapers, magazines, and a plethora of electronic sources. and perhaps its this last category that is keeping book reading down in america. but i really don’t think the 58% of high school grads are choosing to read online over and above printed media.

literacy rates often indicate positive trends in education levels and socio-economic well-being in a country, as well as lower poverty and infant mortality rates. but what about highly literate societies full of non-readers? it’s like having the vote, but not using it. being literate without reading is a waste of the time and resources invested in teaching someone to read. it’s also an incredible waste of mental capacity it would seem. the least literate nation on earth? apparently Burkina Faso with 12% literacy rate. as in many things, we have a precious resource and national commodity that people are happy to waste, when there are others who would be very happy to have the same skills. of course we cannot transfer literacy from one group to another (a la carbon credits - maybe we could purchase literacy credits - for every book a literate person does not read, it gets credited to the account of someone who can’t read yet in hopes of balancing the global literacy system)

anyways, after scanning my bookshelves, i was pleased to see that i had read more books last year than i could remember at first:

The Earthsea Trilogy by Ursula K. LeGuin
Beyond the Edge of the Sea - A modern sailor traces ancient sea-faring stories
The Odyssey - inspired to read by above
Lemony Snicket’s A Series of Unfortunate Events Book 1
A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court by Mark Twain
Tales Before Tolkien - a short story anthology of folk/fairy tales Tolkien had/might have read
The Sherlock Holmes Mysteries - An anthology of Sherlock Holmes
Farenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury
Bridge to Terabithia
The Man Who Was Thursday - by GK Chesterton
Adirondack Explorations: Nature Writings of Verplanck Colvin
Walk On: The Spiritual Journey of U2
I’m Just Here for the Food by Alton Brown
The Audacity of Hope by Barack Obama

ok - so that is around 16 books - i’m sure i might be missing some others - but that seems to be a fair representation of what i read last year (not counting work or devotional books). hmmm . . . it paints something of an interesting picture. a lot of them were re-reads, some of it young adult literature, most of it fiction. i read a lot of heavy stuff for work - theology, caregiving, homelessness & poverty, islam and other world religions, and i try to keep up on the news via weekly mags and daily internet bowsing. so it seems by the time i get to reading on my own, i am ready for some good ‘ol escapism. another interesting thing - of these 16, i think i only finished 7. hmmm . . . i won’t say what i finished and what i didn’t.

was there any other benefit in my reading these many pages last year beyond mere escapism? did i benefit intellectually? or at the very least cognitively? i would like to believe so. but then again i’m a book-snob. i have 4 bookcases between home and office, and our son has his own bookcase full of children’s books. and maybe that’s what this all goes back to. sure we’re all taught to read in school (for the most part), but maybe what truly matters is what happens at home. i was talking to another colleague about that fact this week. it seems like a love for reading may have a lot to do with our parent’s attitude toward reading.

so, what do you think? are we a nation of ungrateful literates, taking for granted the power and freedom that being literate brings? also, how many non-work, non-devotional books did you read last year? (can you top president bush’s 60 last year?)  what were they? what do they say about you?

Peace!

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