Does reading to a toddler count? If it does, I'm bringing up the mean to say the least.
I assume you know, by now, that everyone poops
I have never been more certain.
2 in 5 Americans did not read a single book in 2025
31–40 of 91 posts
Re: 2 in 5 Americans did not read a single book in 2025
#32Does reading to a toddler count? If it does, I'm bringing up the mean to say the least.
I think we should get double credit for every reading of Goodnight Moon.
Re: 2 in 5 Americans did not read a single book in 2025
#33I don't buy that anywhere near that many people read a book in 2025. People lie and say they read because they want to sound smarter and more cultured.
I read one book in 2025. Of course I read every day: news, documentation, emails and other messages, etc. It's probably the activity I spend more time doing than anything else.
You should fix that
Re: 2 in 5 Americans did not read a single book in 2025
#34> 8 Books - Average number of books Americans read in 2025. However, the median American only read 2 books, showing that heavy readers significantly increase the overall average. I don't know, my reaction is "wow, Americans truly love reading," or alternatively, "they really like to boast their numbers even in anonymous surveys." Even if you only read fiction, 8 books are like 500k to 100k words. That's a lot of word…
I just scrolled through my Libby history to check. I checked out 25 books in 2025. Several of them I didn't finish, so the number is closer to 15 completed books, but that's only though Libby. I also finished an entire fiction series that wasn't available on Libby, which was an additional 7 books.
Series is really what makes the number so high IMO. I read a lot of fanasy/sci-fi which is often a lot of trilogies. Reading just one trilogy puts you above the median. I have several friends that read only 3-4 books last year, but several that also read as much or more than me. Discussing the books amongst friends helps, as we recommend books to each other. Book-tok and other book-centric social-media circles are huge.
And it may seem like a lot but that was spread across an entire year. I often read a few chapters before bed each night, but it often depends on how hooked I am on the book, I make more time for it when I'm more hooked on a book, or on a deadline to return the book to the library.
Audiobooks helps carry the number higher as well. Its a lot easier to "read" a book when you can do it while doing other things. Although I prefer to sit down and dedicate time for e-books, I do listen to some audiobooks as well, and many of my friends exclusively read via audiobooks.
Re: 2 in 5 Americans did not read a single book in 2025
#35I am in the "did not read a single book" bucket, and have been for many years. I just don't like reading books, and never have.
Re: 2 in 5 Americans did not read a single book in 2025
#36Aren't 1 out of 5 Americans functionally illiterate? [1] There is no way this is correct.
[1] https://www.thenationalliteracyinstitute.com/2024-2025-liter...
Re: 2 in 5 Americans did not read a single book in 2025
#37Somehow I thought it would have been lesss...
Parents reading books to kids, students reading books for classes, and people who end up reading at least one book a year for work (many teachers or professors, for instance) set a fairly-high lower bound on this.
Much of the rest is people who exclusively read very easy books from one or two genres (“romance”, true crime, airport thriller/mystery, young-adult fantasy, and self-help/business-guru, mostly). That’s especially going to dominate the shelves of the set of folks with books-read counts far higher than one per year. Whether that crowd counts much toward a measure of the exercise of quality, general literacy, is a judgement call, but those readers are the engine of what little remains of the market for new books.
(There’s a niche market that’s commercially viable that involves books laser-focused at being optioned for TV or movies, but it’s as cliquish as you’d expect and hard to break into, and of course other genres still support a tiny number of super-stars)
Re: 2 in 5 Americans did not read a single book in 2025
#38I don't buy that anywhere near that many people read a book in 2025. People lie and say they read because they want to sound smarter and more cultured.
1 in 5 Americans is functionally illiterate so.... yeah. There is no way this is true.
Re: 2 in 5 Americans did not read a single book in 2025
#39What is going on with the quality of the comments on HN? I could have never predicted these comments here 10 years ago.
Re: 2 in 5 Americans did not read a single book in 2025
#40My family is doing our part to keep the average up (despite me being part of the family). I read one book last year, and it wasn't so much a single story as a collection of short non-fiction stories. I've read various chapters of some business books. But most of my reading is shorter form content like on here or articles. But! We take our kids to the library every couple of weeks, and while we do let them check out N…
I hear audiobooks work well