[golf3]

Americans were always voracious readers before television, has nothing to do with women or the Great Depression.

[ruffrey]

That's interesting. Do you know of any hard stats comparing to other countries?

[eddyl]

This probably isn't exactly what you're looking for, but you might find Robert Darnton's essay "First Steps Toward a History of Reading" interesting. [1] It mostly covers the early modern period, if I remember correctly, not contemporary reading practices.

[1] http://robertdarnton.org/sites/default/files/First%20Steps%2...