I 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.

What’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 to grow professionally. I’ll also read a few chapters from books friends or coworkers recommend, especially the parts that seem most relevant. I just don’t really see why I need to finish the whole thing if I’m already getting what I came for.

My parents, meanwhile, will read the same books over and over again, cover to cover, every year.

> 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 words!

The survey this is based on[1] counts listening to audiobooks as "reading", which can only inflate the numbers.

I have nothing against audiobooks, but they are not the same as reading. It is a passive consumption of the content. You can daydream or lose focus and the story keeps rolling on. If you lose focus while reading, the story stops. You may find that you've "read" a few sentences, but it's quickly self-correcting.

Additionally, reading forces you to parse tone, interpret context, and resolve syntactic ambiguity on your own. Listening to a narrator removes those tasks.

I think that this door was opened when we started accepting that reading graphic novels was the same as reading a book of text. Rather than elevating new(ish) media for storytelling for their own merit, we've lumped them into another medium that was already deemed "good".

All that said, listening to an audiobook or reading a graphic novel is still better than not reading a book at all.

1: https://today.yougov.com/entertainment/articles/53804-most-a...

I'm kind of shocked that 60% of all US adult citizens did report reading a book during the year. That seems much higher than I would have expected.

It is a self-reported measure, and it's phrased "read or listened to"--I don't normally think of "listening to audiobooks" when I think about reading, and I can imagine how that might broaden the pool. Other sources (e.g. the NEA survey at [0]) seem to put print book readership closer to 50%.

Though at least one survey [1] points out the wide range of genres that count as books for this purpose: manga, the Bible/Torah/Quran, cookbooks...

[0] https://www.arts.gov/stories/blog/2024/federal-data-reading-... [1] https://gitnux.org/readership-statistics/

3 in 5 actually seems pretty high, in particular if they really did read a complete book. I tend to only start and never finish them.

I admit I have not properly read a single book in a couple of years.

These days when it comes to technical stuff I much more prefer to fill in gaps by reading articles or documentation. Technical books are so long it feels like authors are paid by words.

And when it comes to fiction I have really leaned into audiobooks. My eyes are too tired from computer work, and I can combine audio with other activities like jogging or cooking.

There are some "technical" audiobooks as well, but only a small category of technical books makes sense in the audio format.

What fraction of Americans are capable of reading a book (i.e. not functionally illiterate)?

My 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 Nintendo games, they also will each pick a stack of books. So my kids are going through 4-8 books a month. And my wife is part of a book club at the library so she's doing 8-10 in a year at least.

But for myself, I just have a hard time sitting down to do it. By the time I'm done with work and chores, it's late at night, and my brain barely has enough power to handle a TV show.

How do all y'all readers with young kids do it? How do you find the time?

I still read a few books per year, but I wonder if this still matters as much as it used to. In the past, I used to read 10-20 books per year and now it's more like 3-5.

The reduction is from a lot more time spent on educational series on YouTube and other paid video sources. Is it intrinsically bad if I trade 1 book for 10 hours of instructional videos?

Does reading to a toddler count? If it does, I'm bringing up the mean to say the least.

What is going on with the quality of the comments on HN? I could have never predicted these comments here 10 years ago.

Aren't 1 out of 5 Americans functionally illiterate? [1] There is no way this is correct.

[1] https://www.thenationalliteracyinstitute.com/2024-2025-liter...

Non-fiction books tended to be padded with a bunch of fluff to get them to saleable book-length.

I 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.

Somehow I thought it would have been lesss...

More surprised that 3 did

That's actually better than I feared.

I have hope in know that at least 40% of American's are still literate. I hope to read more books than last year (about 5 last year favorite being John Greens TB book)

4 in 5 tech dorks didn't had enough outdoor time in 2025

A lot of effort has gone to comment without reading the stats. I'll read the survey for you all:

https://ygo-assets-websites-editorial-emea.yougov.net/docume...

Yes it includes audiobooks in "books".

physical books were around three times more popular than ebooks or audiobooks.

75% did not read anything to children (kind of surprising 25% of the population has access to pre-literate children)

15% don't read books they own, which is surprisingly high. A third borrowed their books from the library.

54% of the population inaccurately think they "own" an ebook as opposed to reality. 40% "a book you accessed for free online" Sure thats all project gutenberg LOL.

Mysteries and Crime are top of the charts. I have no idea if "computer books" count as 11% other non-fiction or academic or hobbies.

Only 51% have a library card. I know they are cracking down hard at my library, show up physically with proof of residence or it gets cancelled. Its harder to get a library card in my community than to vote, get a job, or register for school, your community may vary.

Most people go to the library less than once a month. This sounds about right.

Shockingly 20% of people never go to the library just to hang out. As a parent of older kids I do that a LOT, drop them off then go silently read or compute or whatever at the library. The attempt at turning libraries from book warehouses into makerspaces seems to not be working very well according to this survey.

People own a surprisingly small number of books. A "large full height bookcase" puts you in the elite. I'm kind of surprised at that.

Virtually no one hoards digital or audio books, I am apparently a far extreme outlier in that regard LOL. I'm easily five figures each. From, uh, totally legit sources.

Most people actually own about two dozen books and think most other people own about twice as many around fifty.

Since I was a little kid I always read a little before bedtime and it seems this is very popular.

Most people don't organize their books but think they have an easy time finding them (not unlike how people organize computer files...)

Surprisingly there is zero to very minimal demographic difference in every category among people who do not read, which I find very surprising and unlikely.

reading books these days is more akin to visiting the theatre. its a special cultural occasion that you might do once a year to remind yourself that this stuff is still out there, but for actual practical purposes reading books is probably the slowest method of ingesting information today.

[dead]

[dead]

this doesnt surprise me at all

What about audio books, magazines, news, websites, studies?

Reading is so much more than curated dead trees.