[LMB] OT: Books per year

[James Burbidge]

On 01/06/07, James Nicoll <jdnicoll at panix.com> wrote:
> On Fri, 1 Jun 2007, Jim Parish wrote:
>
> > James Nicoll wrote:
> >>      It's fairly close: there are 330 million people in the North
> >> American part of l'anglosphere and they bought 663 million books in the
> >> most recent year for which I have figures (2003).
> >
> > Hmmm. Is there reason to believe that the rate at which books are
> > *read* is close to the rate at which they are *bought*?
> >
>         Good point. I mean, we don't even know that the books that are
> bought are ever read. I know I never finished my CRC Handbook: the whole
> thing is one long infodump and the plot is thin at best.
>

Read or used.  My CRC handbook (I have the math one, not the sciences
one) got used for some time but now sits on the shelf forlornly.

We have to counterbalance the bought and unread books with library
books and books lent to friends, which may more or less even out.

James