These Are the Most Well-Read Cities, According to Amazon

By Anna Green |
iStock
iStock / iStock

Is your city full of book worms or bibliophobes? Where’s the best place to move if you want to start a book club? Amazon attempted to answer those questions recently by using sales data to identify the 20 most well-read cities in America.

Time Out reports that Amazon came up with their rankings by analyzing book, magazine, and newspaper sales in cities with more than 500,000 residents from April 2015 to April 2016. For the second year in a row, Amazon’s hometown of Seattle topped the ranks. Portland and Washington D.C., meanwhile, came in second and third respectively, while California had the most cities make the cut, with San Francisco, San Diego, and San Jose all appearing on the list.

Amazon also released a few key pieces of information about what residents of each city were reading. While Las Vegas readers couldn’t get enough of Grey: Fifty Shades of Grey as Told by Christian, readers in Austin were digging another smoking hot read: the cookbook Franklin Barbecue: A Meat-Smoking Manifesto. Finally, according to Amazon, four cities were more interested in tidiness than romance or cooking: In Seattle, San Francisco, Tucson, and Albuquerque, the top-selling print title was The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up: The Japanese Art of Decluttering and Organizing.

Of course, it’s important to note that the list centered exclusively on Amazon sales—which means any books purchased on other websites or brick and mortar bookstores, or checked out from libraries, weren’t counted. Still, the list provides fascinating insight into the cities where residents are taking the time to order books online. Check it out below.

1. Seattle, WA

2. Portland, OR

3. Washington, D.C.

4. San Francisco, CA

5. Austin, TX

6. Las Vegas, NV

7. Tucson, AZ

8. Denver, CO

9. Albuquerque, NM

10. San Diego, CA

11. Baltimore, MD

12. Charlotte, NC

13. Louisville, KY

14. San Jose, CA

15. Houston, TX

16. Nashville, TN

17. Chicago, IL

18. Indianapolis, IN

19. Dallas, TX

20. San Antonio, TX

[h/t Time Out]