Not Totally Surprised

A report has come out stating what we probably already know: British people read more than Americans.

Not only do they read more, but they basically read real books as as oppose to Americans who:

tend to enjoy romance and mystery titles most

Also known as: CRAP. This does not bode well for the American image. I really don't want Americans to be stupid. And I'm not saying that there aren't stupid British people even though their accent makes us think otherwise. However, I think we can all agree that America, on the whole, is the weird, kind of vacuous cousin of whom Britain is ashamed to admit relation.

Another issue addressed in the report, Americans don't go to bookstores. We prefer to sit on our couch, in our underwear, probably belching loudly whilst ordering some Jodi Picoult novels online. [Because who needs real society when the internet is just as good?]:

in America the internet is the top way to buy books.

And I am guilty of buying books online, but in my defense it isn't because I don't want to go to a bookstore, rather, the bookstores just don't carry the books I'm looking for, thus forcing me to order online. [I recently went on a feverish search for Cicero's On Obligations, calling every bookstore in a 10 mile radius... all had no idea what the hell I was talking about]. Smaller bookstores are going out of business. I myself have lost a great small bookstore. These are probably the places that would have carried some Cicero, but alas, this is the world we are living in now.

Call me old-fashioned, but I think reading a good book (that is not a "Mystery" not a "Romance" or The Bible) may actually increase our overall thinking capacity. And maybe if the country had read more, we could have avoided this 8 year catastrophe: