In 2025, most Americans read fewer than four books.
According to a YouGov poll released at year’s end, American reading habits stay in the toilet. Four in ten Americans didn’t read a single book during our last spin around the sun. And of the 60% who did venture to a library, most were frugal.
27% of American readers read between one and four books in 2025. (That’s including digital, audio, and print formats.) Another 13% read between five and nine books.
The other 19% constitute freaks at the far end, who read 10 or more tomes. But even inside that category, there was plenty of variance. 9% of us read 10 to 19 books, 6% of us read 20 to 49 books, and 4% say they read 50 or more.
The median American read two books in 2025. The average reader clocked in with eight. To put it starkly? 19% of American adults did 82% of the country’s reading.
Though these numbers aren’t great from a Lit Hubbian perspective, they shouldn’t quite shock given our motley state. And if nothing else, we can take heart in their consistency. This year’s data roughly resembles similar findings from 2024 and 2023. (Those one-book-a-year nerds even picked up a few points this season.)
More distressing is the larger cultural shift away from reading for pleasure. According to a National Library of Medicine study, reading has been slowly falling out of fashion since the dawn of the millennium. Kids aren’t reading as much, or getting read to. Men at large may be shifting genre focus, and spending more time with magazines.
The YouGov numbers reflect this demographic shift. The study shows that Americans 65 and older are doing the real dirty work, reading significantly more than other age groups. And while seniors are no more likely to read any books than younger Americans, they are “more likely to be heavy readers,” given an average of 12.1 books read a year.
Though BookRiot reports that this survey strived to be “on par with America’s demographics in age, gender, race, education, region, voter registration status, and participation in both the 2020 and 2024 presidential elections,” of course numbers aren’t everything.
Consider the fact that this study doesn’t seem to control for the fact that one person’s two books could well be Moby Dick and The Power Broker, which seem like they should count for double at least. But I digress.
If you’re still looking for a New Year’s resolution, “read more books” could well be good for national morale.
Though at least there’s solidarity in the remedial group. A British survey conducted in March reflected roughly the same situation across the pond.
Brittany Allen
Brittany K. Allen is a writer and actor living in Brooklyn.
