I read 29 books in 2025. I'm making up for all the young slackers.
2 in 5 Americans did not read a single book in 2025
61–70 of 91 posts
Re: 2 in 5 Americans did not read a single book in 2025
#62The other 2 are lying.
Re: 2 in 5 Americans did not read a single book in 2025
#63What’s the title for? Is it about “reading” or is it about “books” ? A lot of people who say they “read books” really mean they bought one or checked it out from the library, then only dipped into it here and there, maybe a few paragraphs at a time. I haven’t read a proper book cover to cover in years, probably not since high school. But I do read a lot every single day, either for my job or because I genuinely want…
Replace "books" with "sustained reading for entertainment" and it's more clear what's meant. Reading a summary or occasional chapter isn't the same thing, nor is reading technical literature. Note that this isn't an oblique way to frame your preferences as bad . They're simply a different kind of activity, like how writing commit messages is a different activity than writing a novel. There are different activities ev…
I've bookshelves full of obscure nonfiction but only dip into specific chapters when curiosity demands, which is most days. But every day it's a different book. I can't remember when I last read an entire book, it just seems inefficient. Get the info, appreciate the learning, move on.
"Sustained reading for entertainment" sounds like an ordeal rather than delight.
Re: 2 in 5 Americans did not read a single book in 2025
#64Earlier quoted context omitted.
Replace "books" with "sustained reading for entertainment" and it's more clear what's meant. Reading a summary or occasional chapter isn't the same thing, nor is reading technical literature. Note that this isn't an oblique way to frame your preferences as bad . They're simply a different kind of activity, like how writing commit messages is a different activity than writing a novel. There are different activities ev…
I've bookshelves full of obscure nonfiction but only dip into specific chapters when curiosity demands, which is most days. But every day it's a different book. I can't remember when I last read an entire book, it just seems inefficient. Get the info, appreciate the learning, move on. "Sustained reading for entertainment" sounds like an ordeal rather than delight.
Well yeah, you're using them as reference books. You wouldn't necessarily approach a textbook the same way, since the point there is to guide you through a series of lessons that gradually build on each other. Similarly for narrative works. Jumping into the middle of a nonlinear narrative entirely misses the intentional choices behind the structure, for example.
You can read how you want, of course. The consequence is sometimes simply that you close yourself off from other aspects of the medium. There aren't many aspects bigger than narrative structure, but that's your choice to make.
Re: 2 in 5 Americans did not read a single book in 2025
#65Earlier quoted context omitted.
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
Just to be clear you want OP to fix what?
The quality of books they are reading, or the quantity?
Re: 2 in 5 Americans did not read a single book in 2025
#66Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yes they are very illiterate, especially in math; of which you are an excellent example.
? What's going on man? I... didn't use any math in my comment?
The commenter above is saying that your suggestion that there is some contradiction here indicates a mathematical error. The post claims 60% have read a book; you claim 20% can't read at all; both can be true.
Re: 2 in 5 Americans did not read a single book in 2025
#67Who cares? So much books are just slop (pulp), or, these days, over 70% filler. Even if they are "decent" fiction or non-fiction, the majority still are almost entirely shallow entertainment, whether explicitly or implicitly as simplistic "edutainment" of some kind. There are blogs, articles, technical papers, heck, even user discussions that contain far greater depth and/or demand far greater attention and mental work than the vast majority of "books" out there today.
Just thinking "reading books" is something good or impressive borders on anti-intellectual in the world of the internet. A much better indicator of real intelligence is e.g., does a person read actual scientific papers or technical documents, or sites like ACX, HN, SeriousEats (or any other site which dives into any hobby or art with research and with long-form articles), do they know about e.g. SciHub and LibGen and Anna's Archive, do they know about people like James Hoffmann if they are into coffee, or Kenji Lopez if into home cooking, and I'm sure hundreds of other careful and obscure podcasts and individuals, discussion forums, and other digital textual sources.
Yes, please have read some serious books and works in your life, at some point (preferably some classic and modern literature and philosophy, but anything with real depth is good). But worship of "books" simpliciter is pure midwit in 2025 (and was so already in 2010, at bare minimum).
Re: 2 in 5 Americans did not read a single book in 2025
#68Earlier quoted context omitted.
? What's going on man? I... didn't use any math in my comment?
The commenter above is saying that your suggestion that there is some contradiction here indicates a mathematical error. The post claims 60% have read a book; you claim 20% can't read at all; both can be true.
Yeah… I didn’t say they both weren’t true due to a mathematical error… I was insinuating that the survey is probably flawed because if 20% of Americans can’t read… they likely aren’t even taking this survey.
It is also my uneducated guess that the actual percentage of Americans who haven’t read a single book in the past year is MUCH higher than 40%. Maybe a survey of HN commentators but not of the general population.
Re: 2 in 5 Americans did not read a single book in 2025
#69What about audio books, magazines, news, websites, studies? Reading is so much more than curated dead trees.
Whether you read on a paper book or on an e-reader, a full book is much deeper than just a magazine or news article.
But often NOT deeper than a proper long-form article, technical document(ation), scientific or academic article, autistic blog post, or even proper discussion (e.g. forum, or following a post). Most modern books are padded and loaded with filler, or just entertainment anyway, and have no significant depth to speak of.
Re: 2 in 5 Americans did not read a single book in 2025
#70What about audio books, magazines, news, websites, studies? Reading is so much more than curated dead trees.
People that think "reading books" generically is anything to be impressed about have been woefully out of touch for well over a decade.
After you've done about 50 or so major classics, selected broadly from different thinkers and authors, it is clear the vast majority of most books have negligible additional value. This can all be done quickly in your late teens to early twenties, after that, there is no real need to read more than a book or two in a year, and even then, it is not usually worth reading those one or two in entirety.
Digital textual sources like the ones you mention have far more continued and sustained value at this point.