A nation of bookworms

[A Lark Ascending]

Tim Waterstone (the chap who started the main UK high street bookstore) was on the radio today and made what sounded to me like an exaggerated claim - that the UK had more books in print than any other and that it was 5X the USA.

Tried to hunt some statistics but could only find a fairly ropey list of 'most new publications' on Wiki (note variable dates):

United Kingdom (2005) 206,000 [2]

United States (2005) 172,000 [2]

China (1994) 100,951 [3]

Germany (1996) 71,515 [4]

Japan (1996) 56,221 [3]

Spain (1996) 46,330 [4]

Russian Federation (1996) 36,237 [4]

Italy (1996) 35,236 [4]

France (1996) 34,766 [4]

Netherlands (1993) 34,067 [4]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Books_publish...ountry_per_year

Anyone know of any hard statistics?

[interesting to hear Waterstone praise Amazon - he said he had predicted ten years back they would wipe out the high street bookstore; instead they seem to have stimulated demand]

[connoisseur series500]

Many Americans don't read books.

I load up on books whenever I go to the UK.

[Tim McG]

Many Americans don't read books.

I load up on books whenever I go to the UK.

Many Europeans don't either.

The internet has much to do with this more so than anything else. However, e-books are gaining popularity I am told. Not paper, but still a book.

BTW....I am fairly certain they still sell books in America. Save yourself a trip....buy "local"

Edited October 2, 2008 by GoodSpeak

[Claude]

The surprisingly low position of France in the above list (only as many books as the Netherlands, less than Italy and Spain) made me search for other figures, and this page says the number of new books in France was 57.728 in 2007

http://blog-dominique.autie.intexte.net/bl...e_du_livre_2007

[porcy62]

Maybe you forgot about language, and potential readers worldwide. I am not surprise that an english speaking country is on the top, nor Spain, I am surprise about Italy and Netherland, well, not really suprise.

And you have to consider all the books, from literature to scientific studies from gardening manual to recipes, tourist guides, etc.

[BillF]

Maybe you forgot about language, and potential readers worldwide. I am not surprise that an english speaking country is on the top, nor Spain, I am surprise about Italy and Netherland, well, not really suprise.

And you have to consider all the books, from literature to scientific studies from gardening manual to recipes, tourist guides, etc.

Yes, wise words! People who speak Italian as a second language are virtually non-existent, compared with the position of English. I spent three years learning Italian, but rapidly forgot it , as I never came across it here. An Italian who learned English would have an entirely different experience, even though remaining in his own country.

[porcy62]

Maybe you forgot about language, and potential readers worldwide. I am not surprise that an english speaking country is on the top, nor Spain, I am surprise about Italy and Netherland, well, not really suprise.

And you have to consider all the books, from literature to scientific studies from gardening manual to recipes, tourist guides, etc.

Yes, wise words! People who speak Italian as a second language are virtually non-existent, compared with the position of English. I spent three years learning Italian, but rapidly forgot it , as I never came across it here. An Italian who learned English would have an entirely different experience, even though remaining in his own country.

Exactly, for example when I am looking for a tourist guide, I usually buy the latest edition, whatever in italian or english, and I believe most of people who learned english worldwide do the same.

Or any scientific books.

And also consider the numbers of potential readers for mother language.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_langu...native_speakers

Edited October 3, 2008 by porcy62

[A Lark Ascending]

Yes, I thought about the widespread speaking of English. But I thought Spanish was more widespread. What about Chinese - do the different dialects reduce the numbers?

I was surprised that the USA was not way out in front, given its population size.

I'm not sure if Waterstone was talking up his own industry but he asserted that book sales were doing well in the current economic climate - people cutting back on other luxeries and returning to a relatively inexpensive item they can stay at home with, perhaps (there's a similar success story in interior decoration here - people can't move house so they are decorating/maintaining).

[porcy62]

Well, according to wiki link I posted above english speaking potential readers are double the spanish speaking. As for China the data is too old 1994, I guess that a part cruising luxury shopping mall abroad, chinese read more books today.

[seeline]

From what little I know about the book market in Brazil, books are luxury items for most people who live there.

I'd think that these stats (re. number of books/titles in print) would be interesting if compared with literacy rates for various continents and individual countries.

As far as loading up on books when in the UK, I've done that, too - there are so many in-print titles that are completely n/a here, except (maybe) as high-priced imports.

[A Lark Ascending]

Well, according to wiki link I posted above english speaking potential readers are double the spanish speaking.

I did not know that. I suspect I've been under the impression that Spanish is more widespread by the way it has caught up with French as the first choice second language in UK schools.

Thanks.

[A Lark Ascending]

As far as loading up on books when in the UK, I've done that, too - there are so many in-print titles that are completely n/a here, except (maybe) as high-priced imports.

Can work the other way - my only reason for going to Borders is for US books. The history and music sections have titles otherwise unavailable.

Edited October 3, 2008 by Bev Stapleton

[porcy62]

Obviously Seeline is right, we should match the native language statistics with literacy rates, I guess English speaking countries have definitely a higher literacy rate.

[A Lark Ascending]

Obviously Seeline is right, we should match the native language statistics with literacy rates, I guess English speaking countries have definitely a higher literacy rate.

Does the UK have a higher literacy rate than the US?

Government statistics would have us believe that we (the UK) are trailing much of the rest of the world; thus the endless demands to raise standards.

Some stats here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_count...y_literacy_rate

UK and US are equal 18th (along with a batch of others)!

[porcy62]

I meant if you subtract from the sum of english speaking people the percentage of illiteracy, probably you'll have a grand total of the potential readers (aka market) for any kind of book: literature, cooking, manual, whatever.

Now since English is THE second language, the number of people able to speak and read English, according to wiki is 1,500,000,000. Including chinese and hindu and spanish and norvegian and latvian and ukrainian, most of scientific and economic text aren't translate at all. They are published in english period.

About US and UK it might well be that for some economic and/or historic reasons, UK has a leading role in publishing new books.

As for statistic about people actually reading books wordlwide, I didn't find it. BUT, at least in Italy, I found a survey of 2007 in wich 37 per cent of the italian population didn't read a book in the previous year. Pretty interesting survey, it analizes the issue throu social classes, scholarization, literacy, age, geographical distribution, etc., and of the readers too: how many books per years, wich kind of books, why: for studying, for job, for pleasure.

BTW In Italy we have a National Institute of Statistic that work on depicting the country with numbers, including stuff like that. Often it's an enlighteen reading: you got a real picture of the country beyond all the BS on the newspapers and media.

[ejp626]

Tim Waterstone (the chap who started the main UK high street bookstore) was on the radio today and made what sounded to me like an exaggerated claim - that the UK had more books in print than any other and that it was 5X the USA.

Tried to hunt some statistics but could only find a fairly ropey list of 'most new publications' on Wiki (note variable dates):

United Kingdom (2005) 206,000 [2]

United States (2005) 172,000 [2]

China (1994) 100,951 [3]

Germany (1996) 71,515 [4]

Japan (1996) 56,221 [3]

Spain (1996) 46,330 [4]

Russian Federation (1996) 36,237 [4]

Italy (1996) 35,236 [4]

France (1996) 34,766 [4]

Netherlands (1993) 34,067 [4]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Books_publish...ountry_per_year

Anyone know of any hard statistics?

[interesting to hear Waterstone praise Amazon - he said he had predicted ten years back they would wipe out the high street bookstore; instead they seem to have stimulated demand]

Well, this is hardly definitive, but a site called bowker.com claims that it lists 5.8 million books for the US (including some out of print, and obviously a lot of duplication between editions and variants). For the global version, they have 15.4 million books (including 5.8 from the US). In other words, the US has produced roughly 1/3 of the current books in print. Now the UK market may be roughly the same size as the US, but no way are they generating 5 times the number of books as they US. If you broke that down to fiction/literature, I think the relationship would hold about the same.

[seeline]

I'd also hazard a guess that access to public libraries (or lack of access, or lack of their existence) plays a big part in this as well.

[A Lark Ascending]

I meant if you subtract from the sum of english speaking people the percentage of illiteracy, probably you'll have a grand total of the potential readers (aka market) for any kind of book: literature, cooking, manual, whatever.

Now since English is THE second language, the number of people able to speak and read English, according to wiki is 1,500,000,000. Including chinese and hindu and spanish and norvegian and latvian and ukrainian, most of scientific and economic text aren't translate at all. They are published in english period.

That all makes sense.

[A Lark Ascending]

Well, this is hardly definitive, but a site called bowker.com claims that it lists 5.8 million books for the US (including some out of print, and obviously a lot of duplication between editions and variants). For the global version, they have 15.4 million books (including 5.8 from the US). In other words, the US has produced roughly 1/3 of the current books in print. Now the UK market may be roughly the same size as the US, but no way are they generating 5 times the number of books as they US. If you broke that down to fiction/literature, I think the relationship would hold about the same.

No, the 5X claim seemed unbelievable to me, even if he meant relative to population size.

***************

I wonder what contitutes 'literacy'. A government can introduce a successful 'functional' literacy campaign that raises the percentage; but many (if not most) of those who acquire the functional skills may not have the interest, confidence or access to books to go any further into reading books.

That's certainly my experience with a lot of UK kids and adults. Literacy is used as a tool to acquire information and communicate. but the idea of reading at length for pleasure not so common.

Edited October 4, 2008 by Bev Stapleton