Read an article in China Press (中国报) yesterday and saw this survey on the number of books read by Malaysians. Says here that on average, Malaysians read 2 pages in 1996, then increased to 2 books in 2005 and, dramatically and unbelievably, to 8-12 books in 2010!! It even far exceeded the average books read in Asian countries including South Korea (10.8 books), Singapore (9.2), Japan (8.4) and Taiwan (2).
Although I do believe that many Malaysians do read books despite the survey result for 1996, I was genuinely sceptical with the 2010 figure. In just five years the figure increased by four to six times?! Either there was something wrong in the survey, or something big happened during those years.
For the second possibility, I couldn't help to think that the possible cause was the Big Bad Wolf Books sale. The first sale took place in 2008 and it really picked up a lot of followers, evident in the subsequent sales in 2009 (Amcorp Mall) and 2010 (South City Plaza).
Then again the sales were in Klang Valley only. Surely it couldn't affect an entire country's readership. Which still led me to believe that the survey may be incorrect.
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