[merciBien]

Thanks for posting this comment, I searched for sources on this topic after reading it and was very surprised to see corroboration. Here’s a quote and few links for those interested:

In the US in 2019, a high % of adults reported reading a book recently

https://www.markinblog.com/book-sales-statistics/

…who is reading in the US?

In October of 2019, over 80% of adults, age 18 to 29, have read at least one book in the previous year. Older adults, possibly because they are not spending as much time studying and more time working, read slightly less.

Lockdowns may have increased reading in the US

https://publishingperspectives.com/2021/02/aap-statshot-sees...

Political polarization in the UK appears to drive book sales

https://www.theguardian.com/books/datablog/2017/mar/18/the-f...

(edit for formatting)

[r00f]

Did they count only paper books? I read on average one book each month, but all are digital.

Overall I agree with the idea, people for sure haven't stopped reading books. But I'm not that sure about the paper ones.

[watwut]

I don't believe average person actually reads a book a month. There might be outliers who read a lot or something. It likely counts in bought and never read books. But most adults will openly tell you they finished last book five years ago and attempted to read one last year.

[yeetaccount]

Books sales are sales of anything with an ISBN. This includes adult colouring books, which I’ve heard is responsible for possibly all the sales increases in the past few years.

[kibwen]

After a flurry of activity in the last decade, I haven't heard anyone mention adult coloring books even once in the past two or three years. As long as we're all baselessly speculating, I will baselessly speculate that they were just an ordinary fad. My own anecdote is that disillusionment with internet content and electronic consumption in general has caused me to buy and read more books recently than at any point in my life.

[watwut]

They are prominently in bookstores. They did not disappeared and people did not stopped buying them.

Just the hand wringing over them stopped.

[gregjw]

Come on...

[nottorp]

I'm blaming self improvement books.