Chapter 4: As the Good Book Says....

In surveying fifteen people (the more the merrier, right?) I found a large range of diversity in book readers.
The stats on numbers of books read among my freshman honors english class were:
3,15, 5,5,3,10,3,2,20,15,6,2,3,4,3 books read in the past six months.

The average was 6.6 books in the past six months.
The median was 4 books in the past six months.
The most common number was 3 books in the past six months.

These stats tell us a few significant things:

1. In my sample population (freshman Honors English students at BYU) most people read at least one book ever two months.
2. There are a few select individuals in this population who read like crazy and ought to take up a sport. :) just kidding.

The genres of these books were:
Fiction: 13
Sci-fi: 1
Classics: 3
Religious: 3
Autobiog: 1

Obviously, fiction is a popular genre among freshmen. Religious books are also popular among LDS youths. We might assume that the number of religious books is higher than it would be among underachieving LDS youths or youths in general. As competitive as it is to get into BYU, the Honors freshman students are probably more academically inclined than the average.

This also shows us a high acceptance and love for fiction novels. There was a time in America when fiction was frowned upon by scrupulous citizens, under the rationale: "why would you read lies when there is so much truth in the world?" A anecdotal story may help show the change America has undergone since that time. John Taylor, in the early days of the Church, found that his son had one day brought home the novel "2,000 Leagues Under the Sea" by Jules Verne. He confiscated the book, and told his son, "in this family, we do not read fiction!"
The next morning, John Taylor's son came downstairs to see his father just turning the last pages of the book. He handed it back to his son and told him, "that's a good book! You should read it sometime!" (Source: William R. Flake, Professor of Religion at BYU, September 2008).

It is clear that since that time, fiction has become a very popular genre, especially among young adults. We can see this in the crazes surrounding Harry Potter, Eragon, Lord of the Rings, Twilight, and even historical fictions like The DaVinci Code.