Readers get their own holiday on Monday, August 9, 2027, National Book Lovers Day, though fewer adults are reading books than a decade ago. The numbers tell a mixed story.
When Book Lovers Get Their Day
August 9, each year. No library, publisher or bookseller has a documented claim to creating it.
Reading in America, Then and Now
The day’s founder is unknown. America’s appetite for books, though, is well recorded, starting with its national library.
A nation’s library
Congress founded the Library of Congress in 1800. On August 24, 1814, British troops burned the Capitol and destroyed its core collection of 3,000 volumes.
Thomas Jefferson supplied the rebuild. In January 1815, Congress bought his personal library of 6,487 books for $23,950.
It never stopped growing. On a typical working day, about 15,000 items arrive and more than 10,000 join the collections.
Its treasures include the 1640 Bay Psalm Book. That was the first book printed in what is now the United States. The library also holds one of three perfect vellum copies of the Gutenberg Bible.
How Americans read now
Pew Research Center found that 75% of U.S. adults read a book in some format in the year before its early 2021 survey. That share had barely moved since 2011.
Print still leads, at 65%. E-books reached 30%, up from a quarter of adults two years earlier.
Few readers race through stacks. Pew put the median at 5 books a year, and the average at about 14.
Signs of a slide
Other federal data look grimmer. In the National Endowment for the Arts’ 2022 survey, 48.5% of adults had read at least one book in the past year.
That was down from 52.7% in 2017 and 54.6% in 2012.
Leisure reading time has shrunk, too. Americans 15 and older spent roughly 15 to 16 minutes a day reading for personal interest from 2017 to 2023. In 2013–2015, it was more than 19 minutes.
Kids are reading less for fun. Only 14% of 13-year-olds read for fun almost every day in 2023, down from 27% in 2012.
Why Book Lovers Deserve a Day
Books face stiff competition. Americans spent about 2 hours 40 minutes to 2 hours 51 minutes a day watching TV over the same decade, the NEA notes.
City dwellers bucked the trend in Pew’s survey. Some 81% of urban adults read a book, up from 75% in 2019.
Age and schooling matter, too. Pew found adults 18 to 29 more likely to read books than those 65 and older. College graduates also outread adults with a high school education or less.
Ways to Read More on National Book Lovers Day
- Set a goal above the median of 5 books a year that Pew found.
- Try an e-book or audiobook if print isn’t working, as many digital readers have.
- Read with a 9-year-old, since only 39% of them read for fun almost every day in 2022.
- Swap 15 minutes of TV for a chapter, about what adults now spend on books daily.
- Pick a book in another language; about half the Library of Congress’s book and serial holdings aren’t in English.
- Look up the 1507 map at the Library of Congress where the name “America” first appears.
Frequently Asked Questions
What’s the smallest book at the Library of Congress?
“Old King Cole,” which measures 1/25 inch on each side.
What’s the oldest written item it holds?
A cuneiform tablet from 2040 B.C.
How many languages are in its collections?
Some 470.
Do audiobooks count as reading in Pew’s data?
Yes. Pew counts print, e-books and audiobooks, and 33% of adults used both print and digital formats.