Wednesday, June 11, 2008

Do you read more in the summer?

There's a lot of summer reading lists floating around these days: NPR's summer books 2008, Oprah's summer reading list, The Washington Post's summer reading podcast, etc., etc. All these lists have me wondering if people actually read more in the summer or if the lists are just attempts to increase summer reading. In my case, my reading drops a bit in the summer because I spend more time outside doing things other than reading. Short, dark, cold winter days seem more conducive to reading. I couldn't find any statistics on this, but I'd be interested to know if anyone else is aware of any.

3 comments:

Lisa said...

I would say that I read more in the summer, but I don't think it's an enormous difference. In the summer I spend more time outside, in the yard, on the porch, in the hammock or at the park. In the winter, when I'm inside, I'm more likely to be distracted by a movie of the computer. I also do a lot of my reading by audiobook, and since I'm more likely to stay home in the winter, there's less of that time, too.

Anonymous said...

Actually, I blogged about this topic recently here: http://karenvanuska.livejournal.com/#asset-karenvanuska-13718

(sorry, not very adept at html yet). I'm quite against summer reading lists for the reason you mention -- summer's about leisure times and enjoying the outdoors. Lists just seem contrary to the whole season -- not reading, just lists.

Marcia said...

I definitely read more in the summer. TV is a close 2nd choice to reading for me so without my favorite TV shows to keep my DVR full and my attention diverted I probably read twice as much during the summer months. I usually let the furbabies out in the back yard and curl up in a lawn chair with a good book.