Is your city well-read?

[jennymae.livejournal.com]

Hey, look at this post from Neatorama!

The Most Well-Read Cities in the U.S.

Which cities in the United States have the most bookworms? Amazon has just announced a list of the Top 20 Most Well-Read Cities in America:

After compiling sales data of all book, magazine and newspaper sales in both print and Kindle format since Jan. 1, 2011, on a per capita basis in cities with more than 100,000 residents, the Top 20 Most Well-Read Cities are:

1. Cambridge, Mass.
2. Alexandria, Va.
3. Berkeley, Calif.
4. Ann Arbor, Mich.
5. Boulder, Colo.
6. Miami
7. Salt Lake City
8. Gainesville, Fla.
9. Seattle
10. Arlington, Va.
11. Knoxville, Tenn.
12. Orlando, Fla.
13. Pittsburgh
14. Washington, D.C.
15. Bellevue, Wash.
16. Columbia, S.C.
17. St. Louis, Mo.
18. Cincinnati
19. Portland, Ore.
20. Atlanta

A few more nifty details:

• Cambridge, Mass., ordered the most nonfiction books
• Boulder, Colo., ordered the most books in the Cooking, Food & Wine category
• Alexandria, Va., residents ordered the most children's books
• Miami, Gainesville, and Orlando topped the list of buying the most books from the Summer reading list

Is your city listed?

That's pretty cool!!   Notice that most of the cities listed are college towns.  And also, Los Angeles and NYC are not listed...it could be because we, as a people, are not readers, but we DO have a million colleges, so I would think that that would boost the numbers.  However, I do know that L.A. and NYC have the two largest library systems in the nation, so maybe that's why?  I have no idea...but it's all very interesting! :-)

Comments

[jennymae.livejournal.com]

Well, don't feel bad...I live in CA, and we only made it on there once!

I'm not sure if I should be concerned or not that our capital is #14.... ;-)

[moredetails.livejournal.com]

That is interesting! Yay for Portland, even though I don't live there..it's the closest large city. :P

And that is very interesting about LA and NYC. Hm.

[jennymae.livejournal.com]

I admit, I was surprised Portland made it on there. That's cool! I wonder if it's because y'all get more rainy days, so more people want to curl up with a book?

[moredetails.livejournal.com]

Haha.. :P Portland is the home of Powell's books, after all.

[moredetails.livejournal.com]

I have been thinking you accidentally double-posted this, but I just now realized you posted it to the community! Thank you!

[jennymae.livejournal.com]

You're welcome! :-) I thought it would be a fun thing to share. :-)

[danialand.livejournal.com]

That's a cool set of statistics! My city has less than 100,000 people in it, so we aren't listed but I still like knowing fun facts like this!

[jennymae.livejournal.com]

Me too!! I especially liked knowing those little facts at the bottom: Boulder bought the most in the cooking category? LOL I guess I should expect good food if I ever go there! ;-)