Not all Britons are equally likely to pick up a book. While two-thirds of women (66%) say they have read or listened to a book in the last year, just over half of men (53%) say they have.
This is not necessarily unique for Britain and feels like more of a world-wide trend. Of course, this can be partly explained by women reading a lot of romance books, I think it could be a worrying trend for the future. Reading is an important aspect of a man's life. Sitting down and being forced to uninterruptedly focus on a singular task is exactly the kind of thing that is missing from many lives of young men.
All of humanity's problems stem from man's inability to sit quietly in a room alone. Blaise Pascal