Books in people's homes

[Miss Chicken]

In her board/card games thread K'Ehleyr mentioned

Slightly off subject but I read an article about households that don't have books. Googled it and it's 42% of US houses that have no books. How do they expect children to learn? Here in the Uk, (can't find the figures) but it's too many!

I come from a very bookish family and I have never lived with home without there being 100s of books present so this sorts of figures confound me. 42%!!!

I sat down and thought about other people's homes I have been into and sadly I would have to say that about half of them had few or no books. By books I mean hard backs, paper backs and e-books and by few I mean under 20 or so.

I currently have 561 books listed on my Librarything but I have about another 100 still to add and my two sons also have smallish collections of their own books. I used to have more books than this but I brutally weeded my collection when I moved three years ago. I probably had around 1000 books before the weed and about 450 after the weed.

Do you have a small or large collection of books, or none at all? What about your friends and other family members? Do you know many people who don't have any books?

 

[Goliath]

I have four tall bookcases and one low bookcase in my apartment, all of them full of books. And I need another. They're spilling out all over the place.

Plus, my office is wall-to-wall books.

Definitely time to buy a Kindle, or something.

 

[SiorX]

I was always surrounded by books growing up. There are over-flowing bookcases in every single room in the house in which I grew up. I never even really thought about it much until I was about 16 and visiting a friend's house where the family had beautiful ornaments on all their shelves and I realised in our house they'd have been packed away to make room for more dog-eared paperbacks.

I don't want to say having lots of books is a moral high-ground. But it definitely made a huge difference to the person I am today - an obsessive fantasist who makes obscure jokes about minor Dickens characters. And I will say that the friend whose house had no books had a very hard time getting into the practice of reading at school. She was very easily bored whenever we had to research anything, and thought fiction was a complete waste of time. (She is otherwise a very lovely person and makes approximately three times as much money as I do.)

 

[Tora Ziyal]

Unfortunately, I do know people who have few or no books. On the other hand, I have a friend who has 5000+.

My own library is usually 250 to 300 books (I edit frequently). I grew up surrounded by books; I couldn't imagine not having a substantial number.

 

[Spot's Meow]

Well, by the time I was a teenager I had accumulated many of my own books that I kept in my bedroom. But if we're talking about books that my parents kept around the house, there weren't a whole lot. We had one bookshelf full I would guess. This doesn't mean that they didn't like to read though. We had many garage sales throughout the years where we sold off tons of books. We also got a lot of our books from the library. My family members (me included) are the type who read a book once and then never touch it again. Once I know the ending I have no desire to keep that book in my possession, unless the book itself holds some personal memory for me. So these reasons explain how although we did a lot of reading, there weren't actually that many books in our house at one time.

Now, looking at the small apartment I live in now with my boyfriend, we are very limited on space so we don't have as many books as we would probably like. However we have four small to medium sized bookshelves that are filled, mostly with books used in my undergraduate and graduate history courses. My boyfriend has a lot of physics textbooks.

 

[shivkala]

I think there may be more books in each of my kid's rooms alone than in 5 "average" houses!

 

[Count Zero]

I also have a lot of books and no place for some of them, anymore. My parents have a big collection, too, and that's after selling/giving away a lot of them already.

I bought an e-book reader a few months ago and I think that's a good alternative to the many paperbacks I own. But scholarly books and books with pictures in them will continue to amass. And I also have a second hand sci fi bookshop I regularly frequent. Ok, I actually need a larger place. I always wanted to have a dedicated library room in my flat.

Sometimes, at private parties, I'm baffled how few books some people own, and they're all students to boot. However, owning not one seems to require some doing. How is that even possible? (In the USA and Western nations, I mean.)

 

[Miss Chicken]

I went and found some details of these figures.

This might be the 42% that K'Ehleyr was talking about

As many as 42 percent of American children come from families without the “luxury” disposable income to purchase new books, according to a NYTimes “Fixes” blog post, and tens of millions of families have no books at home at all. David Bornstein (How To Change The World) writes that in some low-income neighborhoods it’s difficult to even find books to buy, with only “one book for sale for every 300 children.” Bornstein cites studies that show that having access to books in the home is the singles biggest predictor of later academic success and literacy, even surpassing “occupation or the family’s standard of living.”

SOURCE

I also found this

1/3 of high school graduates never read another book for the rest of their lives.
42 percent of college graduates never read another book after college.
80 percent of U.S. families did not buy or read a book last year.
70 percent of U.S. adults have not been in a bookstore in the last five years.
57 percent of new books are not read to completion.
70 percent of books published do not earn back their advance.
70 percent of the books published do not make a profit.
(Source: Jerold Jenkins, www.JenkinsGroupInc.com)

53 percent read fiction, 43 percent read nonfiction. The favorite fiction category is mystery and suspense, at 19 percent.
55 percent of fiction is bought by women, 45 percent by men.
(Source: Publishers Weekly)

SOURCE

I am surprises that there are so many non book readers
among college graduates.

I read both fiction and non-fiction. About 2/3 of what I read is non-fiction. My brother reads more non-fiction than fiction whereas my sisters read mainly fiction. My mother read fiction almost all the time. My dad rarely read books.

 

[Robert Maxwell]

I went and found some details of these figures.

This might be the 42% that K'Ehleyr was talking about

As many as 42 percent of American children come from families without the “luxury” disposable income to purchase new books, according to a NYTimes “Fixes” blog post, and tens of millions of families have no books at home at all. David Bornstein (How To Change The World) writes that in some low-income neighborhoods it’s difficult to even find books to buy, with only “one book for sale for every 300 children.” Bornstein cites studies that show that having access to books in the home is the singles biggest predictor of later academic success and literacy, even surpassing “occupation or the family’s standard of living.”

SOURCE

I also found this

1/3 of high school graduates never read another book for the rest of their lives.
42 percent of college graduates never read another book after college.
80 percent of U.S. families did not buy or read a book last year.
70 percent of U.S. adults have not been in a bookstore in the last five years.
57 percent of new books are not read to completion.
70 percent of books published do not earn back their advance.
70 percent of the books published do not make a profit.
(Source: Jerold Jenkins, www.JenkinsGroupInc.com)

53 percent read fiction, 43 percent read nonfiction. The favorite fiction category is mystery and suspense, at 19 percent.
55 percent of fiction is bought by women, 45 percent by men.
(Source: Publishers Weekly)

SOURCE

I am surprises that there are so many non book readers
among college graduates.

I read both fiction and non-fiction. About 2/3 of what I read is non-fiction. My brother reads more non-fiction than fiction whereas my sisters read mainly fiction. My mother read fiction almost all the time. My dad rarely read books.

Those are some incredibly depressing figures. I am not the fastest reader but I'm usually working my way through 2 or 3 books at any given time (usually nonfiction.)

 

[auntiehill]

I have two tall bookcases, and one small one in my room. Hubby has one tall bookcase in his office. I used to have more, but I had to downsize when I got married.

It really does surprise me how few people even have a set shelves devoted solely to books. I find that strange.

 

[Amaris]

I have about 100 books. About 1/3 of them are non-fiction. I used to have more, but due to yard sale attrition, I'm down to what I have now.

 

[RoJoHen]

When I went to college, I left most of my books at my parents' house. Even so, I still probably had a couple dozen books in my dorm room alone. As I moved to bigger places, I brought more books with me.

Now that I no longer live at home at all, my mom has reclaimed my old bedroom and gave me all my books back. Now I have probably 300-400 books packed away in boxes. I actually found a large bookshelf in my landlord's garage, and I took it for myself over the weekend and plan to stock it with all my books.

I'm honestly not sure I know anybody that doesn't have books.

 

[thestrangequark]

I also found this

1/3 of high school graduates never read another book for the rest of their lives.
42 percent of college graduates never read another book after college.
80 percent of U.S. families did not buy or read a book last year.
70 percent of U.S. adults have not been in a bookstore in the last five years.
57 percent of new books are not read to completion.
70 percent of books published do not earn back their advance.
70 percent of the books published do not make a profit.
(Source: Jerold Jenkins, www.JenkinsGroupInc.com)

53 percent read fiction, 43 percent read nonfiction. The favorite fiction category is mystery and suspense, at 19 percent.
55 percent of fiction is bought by women, 45 percent by men.
(Source: Publishers Weekly)

SOURCE

Oh man. As I am on the cusp of finishing my first novel I find this exceedingly depressing.
Ugh. It's all exceedingly depressing.

When I was a kid my family was poor. Like really, really poor. Books were the one thing we were always allowed to buy. The houses I grew up in had one constant, they were always full of books. That, plus regular library visits, ensured that I grew up a reader.

My own collection is several hundred, and would be much, much larger if I kept every book I read.

 

[Lunarflower]

I have no idea what the total number of books we have in our house. Less than the number of CDs (numbering in the 1,500-2,000 range most likely), but more than pretty much anything else.

In my room alone there are probably around 200-300, including books stacked on every available flat surface, in boxs under my bed, and in my closet. A great many of those books are Star Trek books, my collection can easily fill all four shelves of one of my bookcases.

We easily have well over 1,000 books, maybe as much as 1,500.

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

I don't have a *whole* lot of books, maybe two or three dozen. That's not counting Kindle, which is how I get all books now.

 

[Amaris]

I don't have a *whole* lot of books, maybe two or three dozen. That's not counting Kindle, which is how I get all books now.

I would like a Kindle, but there's just something about holding a book, flipping through it's pages, the scent of the bindings in new books and aged paper in old ones, there's a whole experience there that I would be loathe to give up.

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

^ Meh. I'm not sentimental when it comes to things like that. I value convenience over all. IMHO, ebooks are easier to use and to shop for. Often less expensive too.

And I find that I read a book a lot more when it's in Kindle format (on my iPad; I'm holding off on buying an actual Kindle until they have one with a touchscreen and/or color) than the dead tree version. So I figure if I read more, it matters little what format I use.

 

[K'Ehleyr]

Thanks for picking this up Miss Chicken.

I was shocked at the data.
I have two big bookshelves in the living room, many books stacked at the side of them and many more stacked at the side of my bed.
I've learnt so much from reading I can't comprehend why others do not.
When I did Son's room the first thing was a bed, the second was a bookshelf.
Man has a collection of about 1,000. Mostly sci-fi. Thankfully they are in his house.

I love finding old books in charity shops. I took myself out for lunch one Sunday, purchased a copy of Hamlet ~ 1930s print, leather bound and sat in the sun with a glass of wine and read until the sun went down. ~ perfect.

 

[Miss Chicken]

This article is interesting

Whether rich or poor, residents of the United States or China, illiterate or college graduates, parents who have books in the home increase the level of education their children will attain, according to a 20-year study led by Mariah Evans, University of Nevada, Reno associate professor of sociology and resource economics.

For years, educators have thought the strongest predictor of attaining high levels of education was having parents who were highly educated. But, strikingly, this massive study showed that the difference between being raised in a bookless home compared to being raised in a home with a 500-book library has as great an effect on the level of education a child will attain as having parents who are barely literate (3 years of education) compared to having parents who have a university education (15 or 16 years of education). Both factors, having a 500-book library or having university-educated parents, propel a child 3.2 years further in education, on average.

rest of article is here - it is worth reading it.

 

[Amaris]

^ Meh. I'm not sentimental when it comes to things like that. I value convenience over all. IMHO, ebooks are easier to use and to shop for. Often less expensive too.

And I find that I read a book a lot more when it's in Kindle format (on my iPad; I'm holding off on buying an actual Kindle until they have one with a touchscreen and/or color) than the dead tree version. So I figure if I read more, it matters little what format I use.

Well, the reason I want a Kindle is for the simple fact that I can carry a thousand books with me in my netbook bag! You can't top that kind of convenience! But yeah, I'm sentimental on books. I love them. I could never burn a book. Never.