I weep for the world sometimes

The lovely Eva forwarded me this article about a recent Associated Press survey about the nation's reading habits. She must have known that my blood pressure had been taking it relatively easy and needed a kickstart.

They surveyed 1,000 people and found that 1 in 4 people read no books. Like none. At all. But before I could start freaking out about what is wrong with people, I kept reading. According to the article, the people who read no books "tend to be older, less educated, lower income, minorities, from rural areas and less religious." So what this indicates to me is that at least some of the non-reading is to do with literacy levels. If you can't read, or read at a low level, or at a low level in a language that is not English, then of course that would be a barrier. Also, it's harder if you don't have the money to buy books and either don't have access to good library services or are too busy or intimidated to use them.

Yesterday was a good time to read the article because earlier in the day I went to a luncheon at Cache Valley's English Language Center, where they filled the local librarians in about what they're up to. Also they fed us upscale funeral potatoes. Mmmmm . . . funeral potatoes. Anyway. They received a grant to help the children of migrant workers. What the studies are finding is that the ESL training for these kids in school is not enough--they're not retaining what they're learning, so there needs to be more reading at home. So one of their big goals is to get these families reading together at home and using their local libraries. They told us how this program works, and to expect to see some new families coming in--families who might have very limited or no English and who may have never been in a library before. So we need to be sure to be welcoming and helpful, etc. I think this is pretty cool.

But. Back to the article. Here are some more of their findings:

Women read more than men, and old people read more than younger people (shocker).

There are more readers in the Midwest than in the rest of the country. This, to me, makes sense. If I lived in Ohio I would spend as much time as possible with my nose in a book, imagining that I was someplace else.

Southerners are hooked on religious books and romance novels, which sound like strange bedfellows, but whatever. Maybe it's one group reading the Bible and another group reading the smut.

Democrats and liberals read a little bit more than Republicans and conservatives. Am not going to make the obvious joke about conservatives not needing to read because they know everything anyway. Oops, except I kind of just did.

Men read more nonfiction than women do.

And now I'm running late for work, so I can't do anymore analyzing. But seriously, if you can read, will you please pick up a book and read it? If not for me, then do it for the stats.