The percentage of adults reading literary novels, short stories, poems, and plays has plummeted to a three-decade low. More people today are likely to watch a movie, or dance performance, or even attend a live book reading, than sit down with a cup of tea and read a novel, according to the NEA’s Annual Arts Basic Survey (AABS), based on data from the US Census Bureau. In fact, in the survey the only activity that people did less than reading literature was attending art classes.
While literary fiction is down, adult non-fiction sales are on the rise, particularly in the categories of crafts, hobbies, and self-help, which rose 6.9 per cent from 2015 according to Nielsen BookScan, which tracks about 80 per cent of print sales in the US.
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