Out in rainy Seattle, it's necessary to have a good book to curl up with when the weather gets particularly humid. As such, readers in the Washington city are buying up more books on Amazon than readers in any other city across the United States.
For its annual list of "Most Well-Read Cities," the retail giant analyzed book, newspaper and magazine sales data in cities with more than 500,000 residents between April 2014 and April 2015. This analysis includes sales in both print and Kindle format. Seattle topped the list, followed by Portland, Oregon, Las Vegas, Nevada, Tucson, Arizona and Washington, D.C.
Though Seattle topped the list for most books overall, they also bought the most books, magazine and newspapers in Kindle format. Of course, we'll take Seattle's top spot with a grain of salt, considering that the city happens to be home to Amazon's headquarters with thousands of local employees.
Though D.C. came in fifth for overall book sales, the city outranked Seattle on print book purchases. And despite the deeply unsexy atmosphere, Vegas residents purchased the most romance titles of any U.S. city.
One thing everyone seems to agree on, however, is the allure of the romantic thriller. Gillian Flynn's Gone Girl was the most-purchased title in seven of the top 20 cities: Albuquerque, New Mexico; Austin, Texas; Baltimore, Maryland; Charlotte, North Carolina; Houston, Texas; Louisville, Kentucky and Tucson, Arizona.
See where (or if) your city ranked below:
1. Seattle, Washington
2. Portland, Oregon
3. Las Vegas, Nevada
4. Tucson, Arizona
5. Washington, D.C.
6. Austin, Texas
7. San Francisco, California
8. Albuquerque, New Mexico
9. Denver, Colorado
10. Louisville, Kentucky
11. Charlotte, North Carolina
12. Baltimore, Maryland
13. San Diego, California
14. Houston, Texas
15. Indianapolis, Indiana
16. San Jose, California
17. Jacksonville, Florida
18. San Antonio, Texas
19. Nashville, Tennessee
20. Chicago, Illinois