42% of college graduates never read another book after college

[ApK]

More precisely, they were to return the covers and destroy the books. Some chose to sell them instead. I recall books started to appear with a message on the first page "If you bought this book without a cover, it is stolen property and the author and publisher have not been paid..."

On the one hand it was good of the publishes to not insist on the expense of actually returning the books, but it was a terrible waste to destroy them. They should have required them to be donated to charity or burned for heat or something.
I guess if the publishers REALLY wanted that rule obeyed, they should have asked the resellers to return several pages torn out of the middle rather than the cover.....

[wyndslash]

Originally Posted by ApK

Where's 'here?'

philippines. we have so-called "specialty" bookstores; the selections are not as broad (they mostly just stock bestsellers and maybe some books with obscure topics), and most books have a big mark-up. the incomes of the ordinary people here do not keep up with the rising costs. needless to say, here, books are a luxury item. i know someone in the forum had once said that "serious readers" buy the physical book. i take offense to that. :|

Originally Posted by ApK

On the one hand it was good of the publishes to not insist on the expense of actually returning the books, but it was a terrible waste to destroy them. They should have required them to be donated to charity or burned for heat or something.
]

they definitely should have just donated them to charity. what a waste.

[MrsJoseph]

I read a romance recently that had a book burning by the heroine. She was buring her romances because she felt they were ruining her chance at romance. Wasteful & TSTL

[doreenjoy]

Originally Posted by ApK

More precisely, they were to return the covers and destroy the books. Some chose to sell them instead. I recall books started to appear with a message on the first page "If you bought this book without a cover, it is stolen property and the author and publisher have not been paid..."

On the one hand it was good of the publishes to not insist on the expense of actually returning the books, but it was a terrible waste to destroy them. They should have required them to be donated to charity or burned for heat or something.
I guess if the publishers REALLY wanted that rule obeyed, they should have asked the resellers to return several pages torn out of the middle rather than the cover.....

Charities don't want books. I've tried to donate them. Even new ones get rejected.

[ApK]

Originally Posted by doreenjoy

Charities don't want books. I've tried to donate them. Even new ones get rejected.

Some don't, others do. Among them, Goodwill and Big Brothers & Big Sisters.
Apparently others as well:
http://www.surplusbooksforcharity.org/

[Frida Fantastic]

Originally Posted by wyndslash

philippines. we have so-called "specialty" bookstores; the selections are not as broad (they mostly just stock bestsellers and maybe some books with obscure topics), and most books have a big mark-up. the incomes of the ordinary people here do not keep up with the rising costs. needless to say, here, books are a luxury item.

Yeah, I grew up in the Philippines and I'm now in Canada. It's pretty interesting to think about how major publishers pretty much only think about the reading audiences in North America and parts of Europe, but not much about the rest of the world. E-books change which readers can have access to what, and have prices that the local population can afford.

I remember Catherynne Valente talking on an SFSignal podcast about how ebooks and ereaders make books only accessible for the rich, but I think it's oversimplifying things. E-readers like the Kindle is still inaccessible and expensive for most people in the world, but basically everyone has a cellphone. If there were more affordable phones that people would feel comfortable reading a full book in, then the potential customer base of the e-book industry is huge.

[Latinandgreek]

Originally Posted by ApK

Some don't, others do. Among them, Goodwill and Big Brothers & Big Sisters.
Apparently others as well:
http://www.surplusbooksforcharity.org/

Yes, I've had luck sometimes finding out of print books at goodwill.

I am a big reader, as are most of the people closest to me, so I was initially shocked to read the stats. Now that I think about it, they are probably bang on.

[wyndslash]

Originally Posted by doreenjoy

Charities don't want books. I've tried to donate them. Even new ones get rejected.

then bring it over here because our uni orgs are always looking for books to donate

[James_Wilde]

Originally Posted by MrsJoseph

70 percent of U.S. adults have not been in a bookstore in the last five years.

Does frequent logging on to Amazon, B&N, Smashwords and Kobo count as being in a bookstore?

I live in a small village and our bookstore has now closed, although the local grocery has a book rack. Mind you, if I happen to be in a town and see a bookstore open, I have great difficulty in walking past.

[astra]

Originally Posted by Ron.

nothing surprising there, I know very few people who read.

Originally Posted by grumpy3b

that says it all. And shows why this country now sucks as much as it does. I wonder though what the stats are for different eras. I would say people actually read more today than ever but the content is intentionally non-challenging geared to probably a 6th grade education.

Not just this country. It is the same or worse in the UK.

[MrsJoseph]

Originally Posted by James_Wilde

[snip] if I happen to be in a town and see a bookstore open, I have great difficulty in walking past.

That's me, too I'm horrible to go on walks with...I get distracted if we pass a bookstore and I always want to linger (expect in my local Books-A Million, the book selection is horrible and I've been there often enough to know it...but it'd be great if I wanted to by unnecessary doodads)

[jgaiser]

Originally Posted by Latinandgreek

Yes, I've had luck sometimes finding out of print books at goodwill.

And in fact they have an online presence for their used and out-of-print books.

http://www.goodwillbooks.com/

[Joykins]

The figures in the OP are just sad I would hope that college-educated young people would have some natural curiosity, enough to read at least a book a year.

I grew up in a house full of books. My parents were readers, though not as obsessively as I am. I have always been a compulsive reader by nature so when I ran out of kids' books I would go read my parents'. My husband and siblings are more occasional readers (if something interests them or they have down time on vacation, that sort of thing). Now I have the house with the overstuffed bookshelves and one kid who loves to read and the other one who only enjoys reading a very narrow category of book (he does, however, write, so there is hope for him yet).

[Steven Lyle Jordan]

Not to deny the statistics... but I'd point out (as a few other posts have alluded to) that there are other things to read besides books. I'd bet many of those 80% adults and college grads do read periodicals (newspapers and magazines), graphic novels (which I'd bet they didn't count as books) and articles/documents related to their work... so it's not as if they are all not reading anything.

Sure, maybe there's something lost by not getting the recommended daily requirement of fiction or non-fiction books... but let's not cast those people aside too quickly. They may have learned a lot of practical knowledge from what reading they do, and may be able to embarrass many of us on what they know about the world, vs what we know about certain books.

[Anthem]

Originally Posted by ApK

That's a lot of trees dying in vain.

And they had such high aspirations!