Kowabunga

The Associated Press -Ipsos poll on reading in America has been released. It took little time for a hard-left liberal/progressive to tout the survey as indicative that Liberals read and Conservatives don't despite that it is not possible to make such inferences based on the data released. Now, if the cross-tabulated data is ever released, we may be able to learn something. It is also important to realize that the poll was of 1003 people, in a country with a population of over 300 million people.

From Breit Bart:

Liberals read more books than conservatives. The head of the book publishing industry's trade group says she knows why-and there's little flattering about conservative readers in her explanation.

"The Karl Roves of the world have built a generation that just wants a couple slogans: 'No, don't raise my taxes, no new taxes,'" Pat Schroeder, president of the American Association of Publishers, said in a recent interview. "It's pretty hard to write a book saying, 'No new taxes, no new taxes, no new taxes' on every page."

Schroeder, who as a Colorado Democrat was once one of Congress' most liberal House members, was responding to an Associated Press-Ipsos poll that found people who consider themselves liberals are more prodigious book readers than conservatives.

She said liberals tend to be policy wonks who "can't say anything in less than paragraphs. We really want the whole picture, want to peel the onion."

The American Association of Publishers should be embarrassed by having their president make such insulting statements, especially since these statements are not defensible. And should they keep in their employ someone who insults a large segment of the population?

We all know that left-wingnuts and liberals control the publishing industry, just as they control the main stream media and the entertainment industry. That, like the tripe coming out of Hollywood, makes it hard to find good books worth reading.

Yet they feel secure to insult the book buying public despite the fact that the sales of books by conservatives do exceptionally well. If conservatives don't read, who's buying all of those books?

Also, the survey asks people how many books they have started and failed to finish. Quite a few there. Then there is the question of the religion of the person being surveyed. Based on the survey, where the number of Muslims reading books is ZERO, someone like Schroeder would naturally assume that Muslims don't read. Yet we all know that this is far from the truth.

As for who's reading what books, the indicators are that older people read far more books than younger people, and younger people tend to be more "liberal" and read more text books.

I read about 50 books per year, ranging from fiction (including SF and Fantasy) to technical books (due to my job) to hard science, current events and politics. I am not a left-winger.

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American Association of Publishers Pat Schroeder Polling AP-Ipsos Books