We already suspected this but now it’s official. The BBC reports on an accurate stereotype:
Indians are the world’s biggest bookworms, reading on average 10.7 hours a week, twice as long as Americans, according to a new survey. The NOP World Culture Score index surveyed 30,000 people in 30 countries from December 2004 to February 2005. Analysts said self-help and aspirational reading could explain India’s high figures. Britons and Americans scored about half the Indians’ hours and Japanese and Koreans were even lower - at 4.1 and 3.1 hours respectively.
That “self-help and aspirational reading” line is important. A lot of the reading being done is religious and scholastic and not necessarily independent reading like you’d think. Still, a bookstore in India is a “cool” place to hang out and be seen. Crosswords Bookstores are especially trendy.
R Sriram, chief executive officer of Crosswords Bookstores, a chain of 26 book shops around India, says Indians are extremely entrepreneurial and reading “is a fundamental part of their being”.
“They place a great deal of emphasis on reading. That’s the reason why they do well in education and universities abroad,” he told the BBC News website.
“People educate themselves and deal with change throughout their lives. And the way to do that is to update themselves with books.”
Not everyone views this data in a rosy light.
“A lot of [book reading] is aspirational, getting ahead in the rat race, getting admission into schools and colleges etc. It has less to do with reading, more to do with rote,” Mr [Tarun] Tejpal said.
Leading columnist, Venkateshwar Rao, told Britain’s Sunday Times newspaper he could not see Indians flocking to book stores.
“Reading books just isn’t a habit with them because they’re not into cultural pursuits. It’s not a part of their make-up. All they want to do is consume.”
Mr Tejpal said: “A good book in India will sell only a few thousand copies, in the UK or US it could sell tens of thousands.
“It gives you a sense of what we value - in the UK or US if you haven’t read a book in the bestseller list, you would be socially dead.”
That last quote doesn’t really hold up in my opinion (although if it did, it would explain a lot about my social life). Most of our (the U.S.) bestseller list is made up of partisan BS that I’d rather not read. It could explain why Vinod considers me socially dead though. :)
