Our book fairy in Argentina, Amalia, has kindly written a blog entry about the attitude toward reading in Argentina.

The Argentinian Reading Culture

Argentina is the second largest country in South America, and it has the highest reading rates among Latin American Countries, followed by Chile and Mexico. According to the National Survey of Cultural Consumerism, Argentina has an 85% of readers (reading includes paper and magazines as well as books and e-books), and 56% of the population reads at least one book per year.

If we consider all Argentineans (including the non-readers), we averagely read almost 3 books a year per person. A 37% reads weekly (everyday or some days a week), an 11% does it monthly and just an 8% reads occasionally. The most popular genders are novels, fiction and history.

Particularly in Buenos Aires City, it’s not unusual finding commuters reading in tubes, trains and buses; eight out of ten people read at least 15 minutes daily. Buenos Aires is actually the city with more bookshops per habitants in the whole world according to the World Cities Culture Forum 2014; we have 734 bookshops just in the city!!

Every year in April, we host The International Book Fair, a big big big event that gathers together publishers, authors, bookshops, conferences and workshops, if you happen to be here, you can’t miss it! We also have many cultural events around books: The Night of the Bookshops (one night with all the bookshops in Corrientes Avenue opened till late, special offers and sales, surprises and more) and MALBA (Buenos Aires Museum of Latin American Art) hosts every season Reading Parties (the Museum opens for free and encourages everybody to go with a paper book, take a comfortable sit, forget about screens for a while, and enjoy reading and chilling at the museum, just brilliant!)

Why is Amalia looking forward to being a book fairy?

“I believe reading opens a door to new worlds and I’m eager to become a book fairy, to be the one who will open that door to many people”