If your ideal day includes curling up with a good book, magazine, newspaper, or really anything to read, you might want to consider a move to Seattle, America’s most well-read city. According to Amazon’s list of Most Well Read Cities in America, released Tuesday, the rainy city in Washington (and coincidentally, Amazon’s headquarters) is the most bookish of them all, with residents buying more reading material in both print and Kindle form than those of any other city of over 500,000 people in the country. Interestingly enough, Seattle won on not only the book front, but on the magazine and newspaper front as well. Apparently, when it rains for most of the year, you have to find alternate means of entertainment.
There are a number of factors that may add to Seattle’s bookish nature, among them its highly educated populace, many of whom are in tech (a historically well-educated and correspondingly well-read demographic), its wealth of public libraries and bookstores, and the presence of a very famous book fan — Bill Gates. Gates Notes, the famous billionaire’s blog, often features a list of must-read publications, which includes everything from The Hunger Games to How Asia Works.
A number of other tech-y cities also made the list, including Portland, Oregon, which came in at number two, Washington, D.C. at number five, Austin at number six, San Francisco in seventh, Charlotte, North Carolina in 11th, and Houston in 14th. The best-read states (in terms of the number of cities that made the list) were Texas and California, each boasting three cities in the top 20.
Amazon also revealed that Gillian Flynn’s Gone Girl was the most popular book in many of the top 20 cities, with seven of the best read populations frequenting the title. Readers in our nation’s capital were the most prone to buying print books, while Las Vegas residents reinforced the notion that what happens in Vegas stays in Vegas by buying the most romance titles.
So regardless of what sort of books you want, rest assured that there’s a city in the United States that will suit you perfectly. And if your appetite for reading is as voracious as your appetite for coffee, head for Seattle at your earliest convenience.
