While 50 percent of the surveyed population said they were reading once a week in 2019, some 57 percent of Spaniards asked for the 2020 report say they were reading weekly during coronavirus confinement.

Among the world’s 10 or so most comprehensive data-gathering book markets, Spain issues a well-researched and -reported “Barometer of Reading Habits” each year in late February and today (February 26) has streamed a news conference for international journalists from the ministry of culture and sports in Madrid to introduce the results if its new pandemic-year report.

The Federación de Gremios de Editores de España (Federation of Spanish Publishers’ Guilds) “Barometer of Reading and Book-Buying Habits for 2020” makes its top-line finding clear: During the coronavirus COVID-19 pandemic’s most punishing lockdowns in Spain, the country’s readership reached a new high since surveys began: 57 percent of Spanish readers say they read at least one time per week during confinement.

Now bracing for what the nation’s health ministry has warned may be a fourth wave, Spain is among Europe Union’s hardest-hit countries, the fourth country in the bloc to pass 3 million confirmed cases.

Understandably, then, many of the top-line results of the new report–executed by Madrid-based Conecta Research and Consulting–are heartening to the beleaguered Spanish market and its consumers.

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