• Average number of books read per year by country

• Reading and GDP

• Selected Bibliography

• Share of readers by country

      Withdrawn to this solitary place,
With a few but learned books,
I live conversing with the dead,
listening to them with my eyes.

      Open always, if not always understood,
they amend, they enrich my affairs:
in rhythms of contrapuntal silence,
awakened, they speak to the dream of life.

      O Don José, for those great souls
absconded by death, the learnéd
press avenges time’s slanders.

      In irrevocable flight the hour flees;
but it can be counted fortunate
when we better ourselves by reading.¹

(1639, Francisco de Quevedo)

La lectura,
aquella que no detiene el tiempo;
más, dejándolo pasar, lo aprovecha.