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News & ArtsMonday, February 11, 2013
Books We're Number Two When It Comes to Reading
Posted by Paul Constant on Mon, Feb 11, 2013 at 3:08 PM
Goddamned Washington DC beat Seattle again on the 2012 Most Literate Cities in America list. This is the third goddamn year in a row! Let's fucking get our shit together, Seattle. Everybody read two extra books this year, okay? We can't keep getting beaten by a fucking district like this. It's demoralizing.
16
Woohoo! DC does deserve a lot of credit—it's a very read-y town, especially when you add in newspapers and periodicals. (@7 is being unfairly cynical; @9 is dead-on about the commute.)
Ditto the suburbs: Howard County Library used to have the highest circulation per capita in the US (and it's still in the top 10).
No doubt Seattle is a more cozy place to curl up with a good book—I fell in love with Elliott Bay on a visit in 6th grade—but DC folk deserve props for being omnivorous and insatiable. (And I say that as a Baltimore resident loath to give them credit for anything.)
Ditto the suburbs: Howard County Library used to have the highest circulation per capita in the US (and it's still in the top 10).
No doubt Seattle is a more cozy place to curl up with a good book—I fell in love with Elliott Bay on a visit in 6th grade—but DC folk deserve props for being omnivorous and insatiable. (And I say that as a Baltimore resident loath to give them credit for anything.)
15
If you compare this study with a recent study on library circulation (only) in the US, WA state, and more specifically King County, finished first in the nation last year and we are well on our way to repeat that for 2013. People, Seattle (and its area) reads! That's what counts. DC's numbers in library circulation is, let's say, not quite up to Seattle's standard... Keep reading folks! As our educational system sinks, books will be the main source of education for our population and knowing that Seattle uses literacy as a resource, reassures me about the place we live at.
14
And as literate as we are, many citizens confused the SPD drone program with the military drone program and promptly freaked the fuck out over it.
13
Also, good point about newspapers @10. They only use daily and Sunday circulation figures; while many Seattleites read the Stranger cover-to-cover each week, it doesn't count.
12
You guys. Seriously. Click the link to the site, then click on "methodology" to see all the ways this organization defines/tracks literacy.(Then be slightly creeped out that folks are potentially tracking your reading habits to do studies like this.) (Then feel sad that "retail bookstores" are part of the criteria for judgment, and that Seattle probably lost because we've lost so many bookstores to condos/"redevelopment.") You are using the internet! You don't have to speculate! You can READ STUFF!
11
DAMN STRAIGHT, HATERS! SUCK IT, SEATTLE!
JK. I'll be back in a couple of weeks. I miss you all so much.
JK. I'll be back in a couple of weeks. I miss you all so much.
10
I bet it's newspapers, not books, that put DC over the edge. (This survey considers both.)
People are such news-addicts there, because local news is likely to be national, and you really get wrapped up in it. Most people I knew when I lived there read AT LEAST the Washington Post and the New York Times every day.
(I'm guessing circulation of the NYT there dwarfs that of Seattle, per-capita, but Google isn't helping me out in that regard.)
It doesn't help that Seattle's newspaper is a discredited joke.
People are such news-addicts there, because local news is likely to be national, and you really get wrapped up in it. Most people I knew when I lived there read AT LEAST the Washington Post and the New York Times every day.
(I'm guessing circulation of the NYT there dwarfs that of Seattle, per-capita, but Google isn't helping me out in that regard.)
It doesn't help that Seattle's newspaper is a discredited joke.
9
1) Everybody rides the Metro AND, 2) everybody has a two-hour commute. As luck (or misfortunate) would have it, that translates to a lot of magazines and library books that get read out of sheer boredom. It doesn't make us better than you-all.
OK, maybe it does, but you can catch up. It'll be OK.
OK, maybe it does, but you can catch up. It'll be OK.
7
If it's based on book purchases, you should know that it is a time-honored tradition in DC to buy, display and discuss (but not read) a book. (Book reviews, on the other hand, are widely read.). I expect that's less of a tradition here, and that a FAR higher percentage of books bought in Seattle are actually, you know, read.
6
Where do they get their statistics? I've lived here for 30 years and nobody's ever asked me how much I read.
1
Psh! To be included in this list you have to have a city with a population of 250,000+.
Utah's largest city has 189,000....
Not that we would've made the list anyway. Books are for chumps and intellectuals(Ugh)
Utah's largest city has 189,000....
Not that we would've made the list anyway. Books are for chumps and intellectuals(Ugh)
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