INDIANS are the world’s most avid readers. A new survey shows that they spend twice as much time reading books, newspapers and magazines as the British, and nearly three times longer than the Japanese.

The titles they choose may not send pulses racing — How to Help Your Child Excel in Maths is a favourite — but Indians on average read for nearly 11 hours each week. The British spend little more than five hours, according to NOP World, a market research organisation that has looked at reading habits across 30 countries.

The survey does not specify what grips the subcontinent’s imagination, but publishers admit that the list is likely to be prosaic. Along with the self-help maths tome, other recent bestsellers include Your Essential Guide to Career Success and Improve Your Spelling. Acclaimed authors such as Vikram Seth and Arundhati Roy are further down the pecking order.

In small towns, encyclopedias and dictionaries sold by travelling salesman often occupy pride of place as the sole book owned by a family. Penguin India, for example, has sold 5,000 copies of The Ultimate Visual Dictionary.

The strong market for educational books reflects the fierce competition faced by young Indians when applying for a job or a place at one of the universities, which are turning out 3m graduates a year. Self-help books and textbooks are considered the quickest way to improve prosperity and social status. Every middle-class family dreams of having a doctor or engineer in the house.

Reading for pleasure is considered less useful and a novel is a bestseller if it sells 2,000-3,000 copies — a tiny number in a country of one billion people.

“Nobody who writes fiction in India does it for the money,” said Thomas Abraham, head of Penguin India. “If you ignore the Seths and the William Dalrymples, books don’t make any money for authors.”

Social commentators believe that the days of the Indian middle classes flocking to bookshops are still some way off. “Reading books just isn’t a habit with them because they’re not into cultural pursuits,” said Venkateshwar Rao, a leading columnist. “It’s not a part of their make-up. All they want to do is consume.”

Nonetheless, sales of political biographies are increasing, and newspaper readership is up by 12% over the past three years, helped by a rise in literacy. According to the National Readership Survey, 64% of people in rural areas and 84% of urban Indians are now able to read.

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