READING: We started ourselves down a bit of a rabbit hole, talking about reading in a recent column.

We looked up more information on the number of books that are read in a year.

According to World Population Review, folks in France and Canada each read 17 books a year. In the U.S., it’s about a dozen. In South Korea, it’s about a dozen.

For the length of time that people spend reading, India ranks first, at 10 hours and 42 minutes per week, or 556.4 hours per year.

Thailand ranks second, with a weekly reading rate of 9 hours and 24 minutes, or 488.8 per year. In China, the weekly reading rate is 8 hours a week, or 416 per year.

The Philippines comes in fourth, with 7 hours 36 minutes a week, or 395.2 per year.

In Egypt, reading time is 7 hours 30 minutes per week, or 390 hours a year.

A reading survey conducted by https://thgmwriters.com/blog reported some interesting key findings.

Most people either read a few books or a lot of books. The top category of “more than 20 books” showed 27% of respondents, while the category of “1 to 5 books” showed 32%.

“The top books people love reading are history, mystery and biography,” the site noted. History was the top category at 34%, mystery was at 33% and biography/memoir was 31%. Other well-read genres were fantasy, science fiction and self-help.

Another key finding, while people are enjoying ebooks and audiobooks, paperbacks still come in at the top. The survey found 57% of people read printed books, 41% paperback and 16% hardcover.

We liked this finding — readers still come in all ages.