Harry Potter, third of sales for decoration only

[Spriggan]

According to this article in Britain that's true, 32% of people who bought Harry Potter books had no intention of reading them.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20070312/od_afp/afpentertainmentbritain_070312122729;_ylt=AiZbYA3t4Uhwe3y4hFVbT2_MWM0F

and 55% of book sales are for decoration only

Although the average reader spends more than 4,000 pounds (5,890 euros, 7,760 dollars) on books in their lifetime, 55 percent admit they buy them for decoration and have no intention of reading them.

Discuss!

[42]

I'm not really surprised. Reading books as a form of recreation has been dying among the general population for some time. There will always be diehard book readers, but a lot of people find reading to be laborious. Peoples also go through phases where they really like to read followed by phases where they just don't care to read.

I know I have a lot of books I keep around just for decoration until I find the time and motivation to read them.

[pengwenn]

My problem is I buy books faster than I can read them.  A lot of them sit on the shelf for years before I get around to picking them up.  I will read every book I own . . . eventually.

[Spriggan]

Ya, I know people like that too.  However, I find it interesting that there's such a large population that buys books with the intention of never reading them but instead to make it appear to other's that they're well read which is funny.  If there's such a valued perception that reading is good (thus buying books to make it look like you do read) why do so few people do it?

[Tink]

Okay, so this is a little off topic, but . . .

There was an article in the BYU paper today about a student who spent over 400 hours indexing and studying the Harry Potter books. He thinks he knows exactly what will happen in book 7 and says he'll be "shocked if his predictions are proven false." He has an e-book with his findings. I'm kind of curious to know if he's right, but not sure I care enough to get the book. I guess you can get it at www.book7answers.com. It looks like one of those "Buy this secret on how to make money from me now . . . for only $100, but for today only, it's on sale for $59.95, but wait, act in the next 10 minutes and you can get it for half price!" and so on. Pretty annoying.

[Sigyn]

My husband and I are book nuts.  We own over 2900 volumes.  Between the two of us, we plan on reading them all, but I think we've only made it through about a fourth of them.  Still, that means that we have series where we've only read part of the series, but I think our intentions are good all the same.  And the books certainly aren't just for decoration.  It's hard to have a lot of books with kids around, so we have the books in spite of our children.

[Spriggan]

Wow only $7 for 9 mind-blowing chapters!  Now if EUOL could give me that for the same price, Elatris paperback has only 8 mind-blowing chapters and like 40 regular ones.

[Phaz]

According to this article in Britain that's true, 32% of people who bought Harry Potter books had no intention of reading them.

I think this statement is somewhat unclear.  From another report about the same data (http://www.radionz.co.nz/news/latest/200703111756/best-sellers_go_unread)

Just under a third (32%), of adult readers admitted they did not get to the end of Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire.

32% of adult readers not finishing the book, and 32% of people having no intention of reading them have two totally different meanings.

I could see some people buying the Harry Potter books simply as something to sit on the shelves.  It might not happen so much in the US (Since I think there is still somewhat of a stimga associated with adults who read and enjoy these books) but in England I think it makes a lot of sense.

I could also see a lot of adult readers attempting to read the book, and not finishing it.  This would really hold true for people who bought it to see what the hype was about, and didn't read (or enjoy) the first 3.

I'd be curious in finding the original source of the information to see if it's broken down or specified further.

I know that personally, I have bought books for "decoration."  Such as buying all 6 HP hardcovers.  I already have at least one copy of the other 6, but thought it'd be nice to have a 'virgin' set that I could put on display.  I also bought a hardcover copy of Elantris that I might not read, that I simply bought after I read the paperback.

[The Holy Saint, Grand High Poobah, Master of Monkeys, Ehlers]

I bought some Arthurian poetry in hard cover. Primarily for decoration. But I also read it.

[Pink Bunkadoo]

I remember somebody (maybe Lloyd Alexander?) saying that his parents filled their shelves with random books just for decoration, and they bought them from some place that sold books by the inch.