Summer reading in Gainesville might be more popular than previously thought.
Amazon.com ranked Gainesville as the eighth best-read city in the country.
“It’s not surprising,” said Patrick Reakes, chairman of Library West. “If you look at the statistics on degree levels of the population, you’ll see that they’re clustered around college towns. Those are the people who are going to be reading.”
Other cities on the list included Miami, Orlando and college towns like Knoxville, Tenn., Cambridge, Mass., and Berkeley, Calif.
Alexandria, Va., topped the list and also bought the most romance novels.
Amazon.com used demographic data based on print and Kindle format book, magazine and newspaper sales in relation to population to rank the cities.
Reakes said about 9,000 books are checked out each semester from all UF libraries.
The number is unrepresentative since many students and faculty download e-books and other electronic publications, he said.
Sergii Kutsak, a mathematics graduate student, said he likes to read printed books and has read four since January.
“It’s a good thing,” the 27-year-old said. “I read to expand my knowledge and develop professionally.”
Contact Shelby Webb at swebb@alligator.org.
