First: I wanna clarify this. I know that loads of people read like 100 books a year, or read all the time. I know these people exist. I’m asking about people that are like… average. An average american who just… reads. Doesn’t track everything or sets goals of like 100, or never stops reading… Anyway, I’ve been searching this up, and i find answers like 15-50, even 100. I find this highly unlikely, especially for average US citizens. Half the people i know don’t even pick up 5 books a year, let alone 15! I just don’t believe these stats. I read somewhere that people read 8 a month on average? That can’t be right for an average person. That’s like 2 books a week… I know people do read this much, but still… For an average person? So be real… how many books do people actually read a year?
This morning’s New York Times newsletter said that less than half of adults read one book (or more) for pleasure in a 12-month period. Here’s the study they were citing: https://www.publishersweekly.com/pw/by-topic/industry-news/bookselling/article/93659-nea-finds-worrying-drop-in-reading-participation.html?campaign_id=9&emc=edit_nn_20231125&instance_id=108580&nl=the-morning®i_id=66530689&segment_id=150941&te=1&user_id=cb7393c0aa64f4b2b0dc868f6ca39d68
I looked at that link and the data behind it; there’s no mention of the average number of books read, just that just about half of those surveyed (48.5%) “read books” in 2022; when they included audiobooks, slightly more than half (51.9%) “read books and/or listened to audiobooks” in 2022. (Those figures are for books as a whole; for literary works, the figures are quite a bit lower.) And the study notes that this is down from 2017. But this survey does not address the average number of books read. As other comments have noted, avid readers raise the mean considerably.
The average was 12.6 books per a year on average as of 2022 from a Gallup poll.
https://news.gallup.com/poll/388541/americans-reading-fewer-books-past.aspx
I would bet the average is still small, like 2. It is true that big numbers weigh heavy on calculations of mean, but the big numbers here are not ginormous, they’re 100x the small numbers, not 100000x (i.e., we’re not talking wealth statistics). I’d place a large wager on the average being in the 1-3 range based on the data presented
Honestly I’d bet it’s below 1. I dont think anyone I know irl has picked up a book since school.
I’m trying to find the actual links, but it’s something that’s obviously been posted here before. IIRC, if you go by mean the average is 12 and if you go by median the average is 4.
Honestly, the average of little importance. I’ve found overwhelmingly amongst my friends and coworkers that it really is just two kinds of people: people who read and people who don’t. The people who read all do so regularly, as their schedules and preferences allow. But whether those people read 4 books a year or 40 is really irrelevant: they all have something they are actively working through and other books on their radar and no one would ever hesitate to call them a reader.
And the other people, just… don’t. Some of them will be people who want to read but are just failing for whatever reason, and others just don’t read and don’t much think about books.
Great, great comment.
Agree. I am a reader but nothing crazy. I don’t set reading goals, I don’t read for hours a day or 100 books a year. I don’t read with every spare second I have or carry a book everywhere I go. But I read daily. My husband is not a reader. He reads once in a while. Maybe 1 book a year. I read like 60. That means our “average” is 30 books each. Which is meaningless information because it’s not remotely representative. One year I might read 30, and another year I might read 80. But I read regularly and have a TBR list.
The fact that 1/2 of Americans don’t read books for pleasure at all is the most important fact.
Also the average reading level in the US is 8th grade.
And the US is 17th in the world in literacy.
And the numbers among youngsters bodes for a worse reading future here.
This is the best answer here.
The anecdotal one?
Agree
I agree that audiobooks must be included. It’s all language processing, and it’s wrong to dismiss the experience of those with low vision, mobility concerns, or who prefer audiobooks.
Absolutely true. I was mostly just excited that some data I had encountered earlier yesterday had a bit of a bearing on OP’s question. But yes, you’re right, and that’s an important distinction.
surely avid readers raise the average a lot, the mean not very much
Which is exactly why any reasonable person would look at the median rather than the mean. I also think you are greatly overestimating how many avid readers there are. If one in ten people reads a book every month (which seems very unlikely), that still only amounts to 1.2 books/year on average from them.
The median is just as skewed a piece of data with how many people don’t read at all. If 51% of people don’t read at all, the median is zero. If you want to know something interesting, you want the percentage of people who read books, and then the mean books read a year among those who do read.
Why? This is not some great divide where 50%+1 read no books and 50%-1 read a book per week. If you want interesting information with details you’ll look at distributions and historical trends and so on but if you are only looking at 1 or 2 numbers, you’ll get limited info.
Makes sense for me, im on book 2 this year.
Here’s another New York Times article claiming the average person reads 100 books per year. There’s no way that is true. https://nypost.com/2023/11/20/lifestyle/heres-how-many-books-most-people-read-a-year-poll/amp/
Keep in mind that ~20% of Americans are functionally illiterate. So I think if you took the amount of adults that can read, that would change the numbers.