Chinese radio on reading

I had the pleasure of being interviewed on Chinese Radio International’s English language station this week. Seems there is a lot of interest there on the impact of new media on people’s reading habits and the government is concerned that the average citizen only reads five books a year. Hum….maybe we’re not so different here, though adults do report reading about 17 per year on average. The trouble with all reading estimates is that people exaggerate, since reading is such a socially-desirable behavior. It’s a bit like that with estimates of library visitations, nobody wants to give the appearance of barbarism so yes, of course we all go there regularly, right? Anyway, the interview was times to mark World Book Day, which seemed to pass most of the world by — HERE’S the link