These are New Jersey’s best cities for book lovers

A lot of people got reacquainted with reading during the pandemic and with World Book Day on April 23, a website called Lawn Love decided to determine which US cities are the best for book lovers.

They compared the 200 biggest U.S. cities based on five categories. They looked at access to bookstores, literary festivals, and Little Free Libraries, among 15 total metrics.

New Jersey has three cities in the 200 biggest cities: Jersey City, Paterson, and Newark. So, how did we do? All in all, not that great. Jersey City was #57, Newark was 63rd, and Paterson was 130th.

Jersey City’s overall score was 9.467 (compare that to the #1 city, New York, which had a 65.823); they ranked 29th in Books for Sale, 112th for Special Access (things like rare and antique book stores), and 121st in Community, which includes book clubs and book festivals.

Paterson’s overall score was 4.652, scoring poorly in Books for Sale at #173 (out of 200), and 164th in Community.

Newark had an overall score of 8.794; they were 62nd in Books for Sale, and 60th for Book Rentals (libraries).

After New York, the best cities for book lovers are San Francisco, Seattle, Washington, DC, and Miami.

According to this study, the absolute worst US city for book lovers is Brownsville, TX, followed by West Valley City, UT, Chesapeake, VA, Port St. Lucie, FL, and Laredo, TX.

In case you’re wondering, Philadelphia ranked 13th overall.

Opinions expressed in the post above are those of New Jersey 101.5 talk show host Bill Doyle only.

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