Wordie: Books: Comments

Comment by seanahan, 18 days ago

Tue, 19 Aug 2008 03:26:28 +0000

"*58% of Wordies have read 3 books in the past two weeks.
*42% of Wordies skipped their college graduation ceremony to read a book.
*80% of Wordie families have spent more than $500 on books in the last year.
*70% of Wordies have not been in a bookstore in the last five days."
-(source me)

Comment by bilby, 21 days ago

Sat, 16 Aug 2008 05:56:49 +0000

Gah, was all set to post the link yesterday and mango forgot. Will try to find again. For what its worth, the stats look like rubbish to me. What does '80% of families' mean anyway? First you'd need to define families. Then, what if one of two children reads books, the other child and the parents don't ... do they qualify as a 'did not read or buy a book' family or not? There are probably lots of kinds of stores that 70% of adults might not go to in any five year period so I find that stat outright unimpressive.

Ok, got it, it's buried among all kinds of book stats on this page. Stats quoted have a link to the source underneath. In the case of the stats in question I fished around the Jenkins sites a bit but couldn't find a full write up.

For the record, 67.38% of my comments are pish-tosh.

Comment by reesetee, 22 days ago

Fri, 15 Aug 2008 17:12:48 +0000

Did you guys know that only 43.5% of statistics made up on the spot are correct?

Comment by chained_bear, 22 days ago

Fri, 15 Aug 2008 16:38:01 +0000

Yarb, I had heard it was as high as 83%, but frankly I just don't trust that statistic. For all I know, it could've been made up on the spot.

Comment by yarb, 22 days ago

Fri, 15 Aug 2008 16:27:42 +0000

I'm as sceptical as anyone about literacy in the US (and other countries), but those stats look dodgy to me. Can you give us a link, bilby?

cb, recent studies have suggested that the percentage of statistics made up on the spot is closer to 35.

Comment by chained_bear, 22 days ago

Fri, 15 Aug 2008 16:17:08 +0000

I wonder what the stats are for other countries too. Or if the word "book" was not so lonely, and the questions addressed reading of periodicals, Internet news sites, etc.... if that would change the results.

Usually these things are compiled by politically motivated groups of one kind or another.

Because you know, 27% of statistics are made up on the spot.

Comment by Milosrdenstvi, 22 days ago

Fri, 15 Aug 2008 15:56:33 +0000

I wonder how accurate those statistics are.

Comment by bilby, 22 days ago

Fri, 15 Aug 2008 15:45:00 +0000

"* 58% of the US adult population never reads another book after high school
* 42% of college graduates never read another book
* 80% of US families did not buy or read a book last year
* 70% of US adults have not been in a bookstore in the last five years"
-(source Jeff Jarvis)

Comment by anydelirium, 6 months ago

Wed, 20 Feb 2008 01:47:49 +0000

'There is no such thing as a moral or immoral book. Books are well-written, or poorly written. That is all.' -Oscar Wilde, in the author's preface to The Picture of Dorian Gray.