AP Reading Poll

What do people who don't read books do when they travel or can't sleep? An AP poll of U.S. reading habits found that 1 in 4 people did not read a single book last year.

I can only imagine how the poll is skewed by people like me who read (ballpark) about a 100 books a year.

As a member of the cultural elite of book junkies and religion eschewers, my favorite statistic was this one, "those who said they never attend religious services read nearly twice as many as those who attend frequently." But on the other hand, "The Bible and religious works were read by two-thirds in the survey, more than all other categories." Geographically southerners were the biggest readers, and older people read more than younger people. I wonder if that's a function of how age correlates to medium or how retirement correlates to free time.

But seriously--with what are non book readers occupying their time? Magazines? Television? Staring into space? My spouse probably fits into the median for men who have read at least one book in the past year, with an average of five. When we travel by bus, train, or plane, he generally reads nothing. He stares into space. Or he uses his cell phone as a 56k (on a good day) modem and computes. And I thought I was a workaholic.

I assume that the 5 or so people who read this blog are readers, but in case any of you aren't, please tell me--what do you on the bus/train/plane or before bed? (I know I'm asking for trouble with that last bit, but women at least don't always fall asleep immediately after sex!)

I read about this survey in American Libraries Online, which refused to open when I tried to find a link for it. (Resisting urge to say something snarky about ALA website...)