Honest but stupid

An interesting piece in The Guardian today covers the results of a survey by Teletext that collated the responses of 4,000 adults about their reading habits. As well as some honesty from people admitting they had not finished books including Ulysses and Crime and Punishment there was also a very revealing 55 per cent of folks who said they bought books solely for decoration and never had any intention of reading them.

The best quote in the article is attributed to Andrew Franklin a publisher from Profile who said that those people who couldn’t manage to finish the slim line Eats, Shoots and Leaves by Lynne Truss “must have the intelligence of plankton not to be able to get through 204 pages of a comic, readable book”.

They might not be very bright but judging by the responses they are at least honest.