Update: As this post is published, the National Endowment for the Arts releases the results of a national reading survey. Click on the post “To Read Or Not To Read” on December 29, 2007 to find out more.
A recent poll in the UK revealed that 77% of 2034 people surveyed reread books. Further, a fifth of them re-read their favorite book more than five times.
According to this survey conducted by Costa, here’s the list of the most reread books in the UK:
1. The Harry Potter series, JK Rowling
2. The Lord of the Rings Series, JRR Tolkien
3. Pride and Prejudice, Jane Austen
4. The Hobbit, JRR Tolkien
5. Jane Eyre, Charlotte Bronte
6. 1984, George Orwell
7. The Da Vinci Code, Dan Brown
8. The Lion, The Witch And The Wardrobe, C.S. Lewis
9. Wuthering Heights, Emily Bronte
10. Catch 22, Joseph Heller
Interestingly, there’s yet another survey polling UK readers’ choice of ‘books they can’t live without’. And here’s the list:
1 Pride and Prejudice – Jane Austen
2 The Lord of the Rings – JRR Tolkien
3 Jane Eyre – Charlotte Brontë
4 Harry Potter series – JK Rowling
5 To Kill a Mockingbird – Harper Lee
6 The Bible
7 Wuthering Heights – Emily Brontë
8 Nineteen Eighty-Four – George Orwell
9 His Dark Materials – Philip Pullman
10 Great Expectations – Charles Dickens
Who says the classics are no longer relevant in today’s day and age?
Out of curiosity, I wanted to find out whether similar research had been done in North America. I found nothing for either the US or Canada. I wonder if that is indicative of something.
However, I did manage to locate one book-related poll for the US. According to an Associated Press-Ipsos study conducted in August 2007, one in four adults in the US, or 27% of those surveyed, read no books at all in the past year.
Again, I wonder if that is indicative of something…umm… just another poll.
Ripple Effects 
