President Bush read 95 books in 2006, 51 in 2007 and 40 this year. The information comes from an interesting Op-Ed piece that I read in the Wall Street Journal today. The article was written by Karl Rove, President Bush’s former chief of staff.

So what’s President Bush’s trick to reading so many books each year? Is it speed reading? Is it children’s books with lots of pictures?

According to the article, titled “Bush Is a Book Lover,” Karl Rove explains it was not only a love for reading, but also a competition. Bush and Rove were competing to see who could read more books in a given year.

Numerous U.S. presidents have been known to be active readers. John F. Kennedy and Jimmy Carter were famously known for their ability to speed read. But even if you don’t like the President, reading 95 books in a single year is pretty impressive. Most people don’t ever come close to that in a year.

So how many books does the average person read? A 2007 Associated Press-Ipsos poll reported that one in four adults read no books during the year. According to most polls done on the subject, the average American adult reads 5-7 books per year.

Is this a problem? Most definitely. Are there reasons for it? Absolutely.

So how many books did you read this year?

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Tags: bush, bush book lover, karl rove, new year, politics, president, resolution, speed reading, wall street journal

This entry was posted on Friday, December 26th, 2008 at 3:34 am and is filed under Speed Reading Commentary. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.