The West Coast Dominates The Best Cities For Book Lovers
If you love to reach chances are you have some sort of E-reader subscription. But sometimes you want to feel the turn of those pages so you need a physical book. November is National Family Literacy Month and to celebrate Lawn Love ranked the Best Cities for Book Lovers. So where should you add to your reading bucket list? Lawn Love took the 200 biggest U.S. cities and ranked them based on access to public libraries, bookstores, Little Free Libraries, book clubs, and events. Check out the 10 bookmarked cities for book lovers below as well as the 10 worst.
Best Cities For Book Lovers
Worst Cities For Book Lovers
Surprising findings:
- Stories of SoCal: Readers in Southern California top the list. Pasadena takes first place in our overall ranking, thanks to the city’s high marks in Books for Sale (No. 2) and Book Swaps (No. 9). Pasadena is home to plenty of literary events, and book lovers can take a break from perusing the city’s many independent and used bookstores and escape to annual events, such as LitFest and the Pasadena Loves YA teen book festival.
- Sleepless (and well-read) in Seattle: Cuddling up with a coffee and a good book go hand in hand in the PNW, so it should come as no surprise to see Seattle at No. 2 overall. Seattle is designated a UNESCO-designated City of Literature and boasts its very own Civic Poet. Seattle has an abundance of Book Swaps (No. 3) and Books for Sale (No. 9), and is also the leading city in the ranking for literary events per capita.
- All stacked up in the Mid-Atlantic: Step aside, Joe Goldberg. Book lovers are headed to Jersey City, New Jersey (No. 3) even before New York City (No. 5) to satisfy their reading desires. Jersey City gives Amazon a run for its money, ranking No. 1 for the most independent bookstores per 100,000 residents. Every other year, Jersey City honors its own Poet Laureate who gives back to the community through their work and public events.
- Unhooked on phonics: Two Nevada cities just outside Las Vegas — Sunrise Manor (No. 200) and Enterprise (No. 198) — ended up at the bottom of our ranking. Both cities had poor performance across all categories. A bad reading atmosphere also sent Joliet, Illinois (No. 199), Olathe, Kansas (No. 197), and Corpus Christi, Texas (No. 196), to the depths of Lawn Love’s ranking.
Read the full study here
Melanie Day is a graduate of North Carolina State University. She has worked for Beasley since 2012 in a variety of behind-the-scenes roles in both digital and promotions. Melanie writes about a diverse range of topics some of her favorites include travel, restaurants, Taylor Swift, and college athletics. When not at work you'll find her at a country concert or NC State sporting event.
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