Scribd maps out the world’s reading habits

Ebook subscription service Scribd has come up with the intriguing fact that the firm’s German’s subscribers are the fastest readers worldwide.

I can only suppose they find it easy to zip along reading English-language ebooks, which I presume they are doing, after ploughing through books in German, which can be longer due to the language differences, although German does also compress some phrases into single words. Maybe it’s just because Germans are so efficient, even at reading.

The US, by comparison, reads at a very leisurely pace, being placed at 14th in the Scribd table.

Canadians are the most likely to stick with a book through to the bitter end and the most popular book in Canada at present is Stuck in Downward Dog by Chantel Simmons, which was published in 2011, so Scribd’s service seems to be helping sales of publishers’ backlists.

There’s a very unlikely most popular book in the UK, with The Story of Sushi by Trevor Corson (published in 2010) taking top spot. The US is downloading Sh*t my Dad Says by Justin Halpern (also published 2010) while Russia’s reading Kurt Vonnegut’s science fiction classic Slaughterhouse-Five.

Brazilians are subscribing to Superfoods, Nigeria is being enterprising with Innovation and Entrepreunership, the UAE have a very impressive top title with Leadership and Self-Deception while India is poring over The Complete Illustrated Kama Sutra.

Scribd: Reading Around The World

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