BookOpinion

A new poll of America’s readers — or non-readers, depending on your spin — was just published. One in four adults (actually 27 percent) confess they have read no books in the past year, according to an Associated Press-Ipsos poll released Tuesday. This shouldn’t come as a shock. In fact, I’m almost surprised that three-fourths of the population do read one book a year.

But why didn’t the AP report it that way to begin with? In the same article, they write, “In 2004, a National Endowment for the Arts report titled ‘Reading at Risk’ found only 57 percent of American adults had read a book in 2002, a four percentage point drop in a decade. The study faulted television, movies and the Internet.”

So, isn’t the AP now reporting that 73 percent of American adults read a book in the past year…compared to another study a few years ago where only 57 percent had read a book? What am I missing? Why the spin?

It’s not like book sales are in decline and there aren’t new opportunities to reach an audience with the booming sales of iPods and portable players, but you wouldn’t know it from the article. More from the Associated Press:

“I just get sleepy when I read,” said Richard Bustos of Dallas, a habit with which millions of Americans can doubtless identify. Bustos, a 34-year-old project manager for a telecommunications company, said he had not read any books in the last year and would rather spend time in his backyard pool.

That choice by Bustos and others is reflected in book sales, which have been flat in recent years and are expected to stay that way indefinitely. Analysts attribute the listlessness to competition from the Internet and other media, the unsteady economy and a well-established industry with limited opportunities for expansion.

Sounds like doom and gloom for the book industry. But the same article later states:

The publishing business totaled $35.7 billion in global sales last year, 3 percent more than the previous year, according to the Book Industry Study Group, a trade association. About 3.1 billion books were sold, an increase of less than 1 percent.

Of course, this isn’t what has everybody’s feathers ruffled. It’s the polling results that say liberals and moderates read more than conservates. The AP-Ipsos poll found 22% of liberals and moderates said they had not read a book within the past year, compared with 34% of conservatives. “Among those who had read at least one book,” the AP goes on, “liberals typically read nine books in the year, with half reading more than that and half less. Conservatives typically read eight, moderates five.”

Of course, Pat Schroeder, president of the American Association of Publishers (hardly an unbiased source), immediately jumped on this. She announced that this proves something about conservatives. Conservatives countered back that they read more factual stuff than liberals. And that the study was only a small sampling of 1,003 people with an error of plus or minus 3 percentage points. In the Washington Post, White House spokesman Tony Fratto said Schroeder was “confusing volume with quality.”

And so it goes…

I’m sure this isn’t the last we hear from either side. Unfortunately.

Incidently, of those who did read, women and seniors were most avid, and religious works and popular fiction were the top choices…which might explain why religious fictional novels seem to have been gaining in popularity.

People from the South read a bit more than those from other regions, mostly religious books and romance novels. Whites read more than blacks and Hispanics, and those who said they never attend religious services read nearly twice as many as those who attend frequently, according to the AP poll. 

What can you take from all this?

Apparently, whatever you want…

– D. Barry