Amazon released its fourth annual list of America’s most well-read cities this morning, and Alexandria, Va., continued its reign at the top of the ranking, as its residents maintained their status as the biggest bookworms in the country.
But Seattle fared very well in the list, vaulting into fourth place this year from number 13 last year, according to Amazon’s number-crunchers. That was the biggest jump from 2013 to 2014.
How does this work, exactly? As explained by the company, “The ranking was determined by compiling sales data of all book, magazine and newspaper sales in both print and Kindle format from April 2013-April 2014, on a per capita basis in cities with more than 100,000 residents.”
Here’s the full ranking of the top 20 cities, along with factoids from Amazon about different cities on the list.
- Alexandria, Va.
- Miami, Fla.
- Knoxville, Tenn.
- Seattle, Wash.
- Orlando, Fla.
- Ann Arbor, Mich.
- Berkeley, Calif.
- Cambridge, Mass.
- Cincinnati, Ohio
- Columbia, S.C.
- St. Louis, Mo.
- Pittsburgh, Penn.
- Vancouver, Wash.
- Salt Lake City, Utah
- Atlanta, Ga.
- Gainesville, Fla.
- Dayton, Ohio
- Clearwater, Fla.
- Richmond, Va.
- Tallahassee, Fla.
- Inferno by Dan Brown was the best-selling book overall in Alexandria, Va., followed by Divergent by Veronica Roth andThe Goldfinch by Donna Tartt. Divergent was the most-read book by Goodreads users in Alexandria.
- While Alexandria, Va. bought the most books overall, Cambridge, Mass. bought the most print books, and Knoxville, Tenn. purchased the most Kindle books.
- Seattle, Wash. made the biggest gain this year, jumping from the #13 spot in 2013 to #4 this year.
- Cambridge, Mass. continues to grow more budding entrepreneurs than any other city, ordering the most books in the Business & Investing category. Top titles include Thinking, Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman and perennial best seller StrengthsFinder 2.0 by Tom Rath.
- Looking only at cities with more than 1 million residents, San Diego, Calif. is the most well-read.
