On the new New Yorker blog The Book Bench, Caleb Crain does a close reading of a Random House/Zogby poll on American reading habits. (I was trying to think of another phrase for “reading habits” so as not to lean on the wording of the benchers, but I’ve got jet lag, and I’m afraid I’m flagging.) I thought this was really funny:

The Zogby poll reflects not only the way that Americans buy books, but what’s socially acceptable to say about buying books. For example, Zogby reports that only thirty-two percent of Americans borrow books, while seventy-one per cent lend them. That might be true; it’s possible to reconcile the disparity by supposing that a small cadre of predatory moochers are taking advantage of a vast cow-like herd of good-hearted people who can’t say no. But the disparity is awfully large. A likelier explanation is that people would rather say that they give books than that they take them.