📚 Good Tuesday morning. We're here with a special edition dedicated to all things books, written by our Axios colleague Sami Sparber.

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Today’s newsletter is 868 words — a 3.5-minute read.

Just over 16% of Americans read for pleasure on an average day last year, according to new government data.

Why it matters: America's reading slump is sticking — remaining near the lowest level in at least two decades.

• Researchers say reading, even for fun, comes with a host of benefits for emotional intelligence, employment, health and more.

Zoom in: Not only has the share of leisure readers fallen, but so has the time spent doing it.

• Americans spent an average of 16 minutes per day reading for pleasure in 2025, seven minutes less than a decade ago, according to the data.
• For comparison, people spent an average of 2.6 hours watching TV daily last year.

By the numbers: Back in 2005, 27% of people 15 and older read for pleasure on an average day, but the numbers are lower today, per data from the American Time Use Survey.

• In the 2025 survey, women (19%) were more likely to be readers than men (13%), and so were people 65 and older (27%).

Reality check: People are still buying books. Barnes & Noble and independent bookstores have mounted a comeback, opening new stores and reporting higher sales.

• And "romantasy" — steamy fiction that mixes romance and fantasy — is now a billion-dollar business.

Ohio, Utah and Washington lead the nation with more than 11 public library checkouts per person, federal data shows.

The big picture: Public libraries nationwide reported 6.5 checkouts per person in FY 2024, according to the Institute of Museum and Library Services survey.

• That figure includes physical items and electronic materials like e-books.

The other side: West Virginia (3.5), Georgia (3.1) and Mississippi (1.9) saw the fewest library checkouts per person.

• Arkansas had the sixth-fewest with 4.2.

Between the lines: U.S. library circulation per person is rebounding from its pandemic-era drop, helped by a boom in digital borrowing.

• Electronic material checkouts reached a decade-high 2.1 per person in FY 2024, per IMLS.
• Physical checkouts remain twice as common, at 4.3 per person.

The bottom line: Take this as a reminder to finally get your library card — or return those expired books.

Need a reading recommendation? "The Calamity Club" was last month's most-borrowed e-book on Libby, the library app tells Axios.

State of play: Author Kathryn Stockett's bestseller explores poverty and friendship through the eyes of two outcast women in 1930s Mississippi.

• It's her first book since her 2009 breakout, "The Help."

The intrigue: Libby's top 20 features several BookTok favorites that have either already been adapted for the screen or are slated to be.

• Those titles include "Yesteryear" by Caro Claire Burke, a thriller about a tradwife influencer that Anne Hathaway is set to star in and produce, and "The Deal" by Elle Kennedy, the basis for Amazon Prime Video's hit hockey romance series "Off Campus."

The fine print: The data reflects North American public libraries using Libby.

What's next: These are some of the most anticipated new releases this fall …

• "Agrippa": "Conclave" author Robert Harris' novel about "ancient Rome's descent into dictatorship"
• "Taipei Story": "Yellowface" and "Babel" author R.F. Kuang's novel about a Chinese American college student spending a summer in Taipei
• "Hollow Bones": Bestselling author Jodi Picoult's novel about an emergency preparedness official shaped by losing her mother on 9/11
• "A Court of Splintered Harmony": Sarah J. Maas returns to her hit romantasy series. Plus, another book is scheduled for release next year.

Book club events on Eventbrite jumped 33% during the first half of this year compared with last — driven largely by "hyper niche" meetups, the platform tells Axios.

Why it matters: These clubs are as much about finding community as finishing the book.

Readers are lacing up corsets, attaching prosthetic fairy ears, and gathering with fellow fans of the red-hot "romantasy" genre.

• They're reading together silently, sometimes not even the same book.
• And indie bookstores are hosting clubs for "weird girl" literary fiction and for readers who want to craft while they discuss.

The big picture: "The definition of a 'book club' is splitting into a dozen different directions, expanding to fit all kinds of readers, interests and social appetites," Eventbrite general manager Andrea Parodi tells Axios.

Between the lines: Book clubs are also getting a lift as younger generations embrace offline hobbies and in-person hangouts.

Yes, but: Many people still prefer to read on their own.

• In a 2025 Pew survey, just 7% of U.S. adults said they'd participated in a book club recently. Women (10%) were twice as likely as men (5%) to be members.

The bottom line: Looking for your people? There's probably a book club for that.

Thanks to Chloe Gonzales for editing this newsletter.

📚 Alex has a library card. Do you?

📖 Worth is on sabbatical. Maybe he's at the library.