February 4, 2026
Books? No thanks, says 41% of America
2 in 5 Americans did not read a single book in 2025
‘2 in 5 Americans didn’t read a book’ and the internet is somehow… relieved
TLDR: New data says 2 in 5 Americans didn’t read a single book in 2025, while a small group of heavy readers carry almost all the page counts. Commenters swing between joking relief, panic about literacy, and arguing whether audiobooks and online reading should “count,” exposing a bigger fight over what reading even means now.
The study says it loud: in 2025, 41% of Americans didn’t read a single book, while a tiny super–reader elite (top 19%) carried 82% of all the page-turning. That should be shocking, but the comment section’s vibe is more “wow, I thought it’d be worse” than full-blown panic. One user literally shrugs, “Somehow I thought it would have been lesss…,” turning a national reading crisis into a low-key roast of everyone’s expectations.
Others are clinging to hope. One commenter cheers that at least “40% of Americans are still literate” and proudly flexes their five books from last year, like they just won the Reading Olympics. The real drama kicks in when people start asking what even counts as reading in 2025. Audiobooks? Articles? Websites? One user fires back that reading is “more than curated dead trees,” defending audio and digital readers from book-snob judgment.
Then the mood darkens: someone asks what share of Americans are actually capable of reading a book, hinting at the 14% functional illiteracy and struggling kids the stats quietly mention. Between doomposting about literacy, debates over whether listening to books is “cheating,” and self-deprecating jokes about never finishing that one novel on the nightstand, the community manages to turn a grim statistic into a messy, oddly funny group therapy session about how we read now.
Key Points
- •In 2025, 41% of Americans did not read a single book; the median American read 2 books.
- •Top 19% of U.S. adults accounted for 82% of all books read in 2025, showing highly concentrated reading.
- •Older adults (65+) read more than twice as many books as 18–29-year-olds; middle-age groups read 8.2 and 6.4 books on average.
- •Audiobook market is projected to grow at 26.2% CAGR to $35.47B by 2030 (from $8.70B in 2024); print sales in the U.S. hit 783M units in 2024 (+23% over a decade).
- •UK youth reading enjoyment hit a 20-year low (32.7% enjoy; 18.7% read daily); U.S. literacy challenges include 14% functional illiteracy and 65% of fourth graders below proficiency.