Book reading in foreign languages is dominated by English, with at least one book in this language read by every tenth reader; this is followed by Slovak, German and French, though the number of those reading these languages is falling significantly.

The area dominating all reading is that of fiction. Out of one hundred readers (of anything), 85 are those who read at least fiction work a year. The main reason they do so is given as “relaxation”, followed by “enrichment of inner life” and “source of information”.

Magazine readers are numerically a broader categeory than book readers.

As for non-readers, the main reason given why they do not read is lack of time and that they do not enjoy it. The third most common reason is that they find everything they want to know in other media (e.g. on television, radio and the internet).

Looking at what we read, we find that contemporary leisure fiction is in top position (with about a quarter of all books), followed by non-fiction, classic literature and specialist literature.

To summarize, the favourite author among the adult Czech population was Michal Viewegh, a contemporary middle-aged generation prose writer, while the memoirs by Betty MacDonald The Egg and I, first published in the USA in 1945, was the most popular book.

What was the greatest influence on the population of the Czech Republic and their attitude towards books? Above all, the domestic environment, and in particular the fact that at home there are lots of books and book reading is very much fostered there, while another reason was the community of friends.

• There is a great difference (around 11%) between men and women in favour of the latter, which is stable over the three polls. This difference is even greater in the case of fiction.

• As for age, all three polls show a significant drop in the number of readers aged 25-34, while the opposite is very much the case for 15-24 year olds, the main reason for which might be that this is school attendance age.

• Education is clearly the most important variable, as the largest difference in the number of readers is between primary and secondary education; however, the last poll saw a considerable increase in the number of readers with primary education.

• Economic activity only plays a small differential role: people who are economically inactive (students, pensioners, women on maternity leave) read a little more. The nature of one’s work plays a similar role. .

• Income per household member also plays an important role: the higher the income, the more frequent the reading.

• Size of conurbation does not play an important role; the predominance of large locations over small ones is in no way significant.

• Categories in order of largest representation of readers (2013): university graduates (97%), mental work (92%), women (89%), conurbations 5 000–19 000 inhabitants (87%), combined physical and mental work and secondary education (86%).

How different types of readers appear in socio-demographic terms:

• reader: more likely to be a woman, aged 65+; university educated, probably from higher income categories but economically inactive; pensioners predominate .

• fiction reader: more likely to be a woman with secondary or university education living in a city.

• magazine reader: more likely to be a woman with secondary education aged 25-44.