1. Literacy Stats … While You Wait A poll commissioned by Teletext in 2007 questioned 4,000 adult readers on their reading habits. The survey found the top 10 fiction books that Britons cannot finish are: 1) Vernon God Little, D.B.C Pierre (35%) 2) Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, J. K Rowling (32%) 3) Ulysses, James Joyce (28%) 4) Captain Corelli's Mandolin, Louis De Bernieres (27%) 5) Cloud Atlas, David Mitchell (24%) 6) The Satanic Verses, Salman Rushdie (21%) 7) The Alchemist, Paulo Coelho (19%) 8) War and Peace, Leo Tolstoy (18%) 9) The God of Small Things, Arundhati Roy (16%) 10) Crime and Punishment, Dostoyevsky (15%) Source: National Literacy Trust

2. Literacy Stats … While You Wait In a survey of 2,000 adults, a third had not bought a new book in the previous 12 months. 34% said they did not read books. (Expanding the Market, Book Marketing Ltd, 2004) Source: National Literacy Trust

3. Literacy Stats … While You Wait In June 2002, the ONS Omnibus survey included a module on reading habits commissioned by the National Reading Campaign. It found that nearly half of adults had read at least five books or more in the previous 12 months, with almost one in five claiming to have read 20 books or more. Source: National Literacy Trust

4. Literacy Stats … While You Wait A survey of 4,000 people for the Raw Literacy Campaign (2006) found that reading was an important activity for 79%, more popular than sex (69%), TV (67%) or computer games (15%). However, although 82% of the population say they enjoy their reading, a significant proportion say they do not (17%). Source: National Literacy Trust

5. Literacy Stats … While You Wait A survey of 1,000 people for Bedtime Reading Week 2002 found the most popular place to read was in bed (65% of the sample). 25% relax with a book in the bath, 10% take a book to the loo (mainly men), almost half like to read on holiday and a third read on the journey to work. Over a third of those interviewed said they wish they had more time to read. Source: National Literacy Trust

6. Literacy Stats … While You Wait A report for the 2008 National Year of Reading showed that 45% of teenagers have been told off by an adult for enjoying something that is not deemed to be ‘proper reading’. Source: National Literacy Trust

7. Literacy Stats … While You Wait A report for the 2008 National Year of Reading showed that: 62% of teens say that they have liked reading something so much they have passed it on to a friend or family member; Harry Potter still features in the top 10, it also appears at number 8 least loved read; Boys are particularly practical in their approach, with 31% saying that they love reading because it helps them get better at their hobbies (e.g. sports, films or music). Source: National Literacy Trust

8. Literacy Stats … While You Wait In 2006, a survey by Bounty family marketing found that one third of children are never read a bedtime story by their parents. However, the survey also showed that 62% of parents do read to their children, despite a quarter of those having never been read to as children Source: National Literacy Trust

9. Literacy Stats … While You Wait Nine out of ten mothers say they read to their offspring at least once a week. 70% say they do so every day. (Mori 1999) Source: National Literacy Trust

10. Literacy Stats … While You Wait 2006-7 Library Statistics UK’s most borrowed children’s author: Jacqueline Wilson The five authors with over 1 million loans: 1. James Patterson 2. Jacqueline Wilson 3. Daisy Meadows 4. Josephine Cox 5. Nora Roberts Source: National Literacy Trust

11. Literacy Stats … While You Wait Only 5.2 million adults (16% of the adult population) would fail to pass an English GCSE in autumn 2003 - compared with slightly more than 7 million (20% of adult population) indicated in the Moser report in 1999. Source: National Literacy Trust

12. Literacy Stats … While You Wait In 2003, the DfES found that 29% of adults - as many as 11 million people - could not calculate the area of a floor, in either square feet or metres. More than 10% were unable to understand the instructions on a packet of seeds. And less than a third of people managed to work out the amount of plastic covering needed to line a pond - even with a calculator, pen and paper. (Source: BBC News website, 1 May 2003) Source: National Literacy Trust

13. Literacy Stats … While You Wait Nearly four out of 10 adults in some parts of England cannot read or write properly or do simple sums according to a Basic Skills Agency's report in May 2000. This report came a year after the agency's chairman Sir Claus Moser's report, which described the serious problem of 20% of adults being "functionally illiterate". A reinterpretation of the Moser data put the national average even higher, at 24% - rising to nearly 40% in some areas. On average, 15% have low literacy, 5% have lower literacy and 4% have very low literacy. Source: National Literacy Trust

14. Literacy Stats … While You Wait Across Europe around 10% of the population falls into the low skills category; in Britain the figure is over 20%: eight million people are so poor at reading and writing that they cannot cope with the demands of modern life. (Source: International Adult Literacy Survey, 1998) Source: National Literacy Trust