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I remember 25 years ago, I was having my stuff packed up because I was getting stationed in Korea for a year. I had a small bookshelf, perhaps 4 feet tall and a couple feet wide, and it wasn't quite full. They guy who came to pack up my stuff talked about how "many" books I had, and said that he read only one book in his whole life. There just wasn't much that I could say about that, so I just let it go and let him get on with his work.
For some people, it appears normal to read no books at all. I've been in people's houses where there wasn't a book to be seen. For others, reading constantly rapidly appears to be normal. 57% of Americans reading 20 or more books a year is a pretty significant number. I wouldn't call reading 19 books a year reading only a few.
I think the belief that in the past, people used to read and read and read is based in judging the population as a whole on what your personal experience was. It's true, in the past they didn't have TV and video games, but there were plenty of other activities besides reading. There was playing outside, for example.
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