I am trying to take heart in the YouGov poll showing that 54% of Americans read at least one book last year.

I was afraid it was even lower.

But really, that’s just an awful figure. I wonder: What are all these people doing if they are not reading?

Also, I think: This lack of reading explains a lot.

Like Thomas Jefferson, “I cannot live without books.” I read 60 in 2023, which puts me in the 99th percentile of my fellow adult Americans. I understand I am different. I have always been so. In high school, I hid my library books in my shoulder bag so I wouldn’t be considered a nerd.

Reading is integral to my being. I don’t expect it to be so important to everyone. I would just like Americans to read, say, five books a year. Really they should be reading about 10. That would make me very happy, and, I believe, ensure the future of our democracy.

But I would settle for five. Alas, only 33% achieved that goal in 2023.

Reader Nerd Girl grew up to be a journalist and a school librarian. As such, I spent many years encouraging 12-year-olds to read. I am not happy to think that they have turned into 40-year-olds who barely read a book a year.

That said, then, and now, I’m not a stickler for reading material. Manga, Car and Driver, the sports section of the newspaper — it was all good. I still have warm and fuzzy memories of the boys who swore up and down they hated to read. Faced with a book report assignment, they reluctantly took “Lost on a Mountain in Maine” from my proffered hands. This was usually accompanied by a sneer.

After spending a few days wandering around Mount Katahdin with young Donn Fendler, however, they were hooked.

“You just have to find the right book,” was my constant advice and heartfelt belief.

Still, I saw how young people’s interest in reading was declining year after year. The popularity of the internet was rising at the same time. I told myself that “reading was reading,” whether on a screen or on paper.

Nowadays, with the popularity of Instagram and TikTok, I doubt that much reading is getting done online at all.

I understand the draw of the easy. I enjoy streaming movies and series as much as anyone, and spend more time online than I should. I even play a video game from time to time. But I always have a book going, sometimes two. Reading has taken me through boring rainy afternoons, long train trips, hospital stays and grief. Recently, I saw a friend at the public library. She is recovering from a serious illness.

“Good thing I like to read,” she said.

Exactly.

I do feel books are my friends and companions. Maybe that is because I grew up with them. One of my earliest memories is of an impressive pile of Little Golden Books on the floor of a room where I played. My parents bought books for themselves and my sister and me. My father took me to the library weekly.

Our grandparents had books in their homes, too. My mother’s parents were Portuguese immigrants, and my grandfather barely spoke English. In their parlor, however, was a bookcase that included popular bestsellers (in English) and a nearly complete collection of the Cherry Ames nurse novels.

My paternal grandfather was born in Rio de Janeiro. From his library, I have several volumes of the “Book of Knowledge,” a wonderfully illustrated encyclopedia from the turn of the 20th century. Also, the intriguing 1898 adventure “Lost in a Brazilian Forest.”

My father was not a star student in high school, but he was an avid reader. He told me he always kept a paperback book stashed in the back pocket of his jeans (the imprint Pocket Books was that compact back in the 1940s), so when he had a break at his part-time job as a department store stock clerk, he could get a few pages in.

Yet, for all our reading, the television was always on at our house. Often, it was the Red Sox or the Bruins. Sometimes, “Dark Shadows.” To this day, I could tell you the most frequent guests on “The Merv Griffin Show.”

Often, we were reading during the commercials.

Reading does not preclude life; it enhances it. When I was growing up, my family loved to travel, go to the beach and play backyard games (not to mention head to Fenway Park at least once a year). We also loved to read. I remember sitting on the beach in Miami, age 13, reading “The Case of the Velvet Claws,” by Erle Stanley Gardner — the first in the Perry Mason series.

Like I said, reading is reading. It doesn’t always have to be Dostoevsky.

Fiction broadens our understanding of other people, and can increase our empathy. It helps us process our own feelings and experiences.

Nonfiction enlightens us, prompts us to ponder big thoughts, sharpens our critical thinking skills.

Isn’t this what Americans need, now more than ever?

The summer reading season is about to begin. Here’s hoping more of us pick up a book. Trust me when I say that a good story goes perfectly with a lounge chair, a cold beverage and an ocean view.

Liz Soares welcomes email at [email protected].