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Three South East cities named best for book readers

8 September 2022
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Three cities in the South East, Oxford, Brighton & Hove and Portsmouth, have been named in the top ten best cities for book readers in the UK.

This comes from novel research released by Berkshire-based training company The Knowledge Academy to mark ‘Read a New Book Month’. Researchers tallied the number of bookshops and libraries in UK towns and cities using OpenStreetMap’s API overpass.

This data was then referenced against population numbers to calculate a percentrank score. These scores were then averaged to determine a ranking of which cities are best for bookworms.

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Reading ahead of the class in joint first place is Oxford; while the city has less bookshops than York, its 20 libraries, including the world-famous Bodleian Library, give it an identical final score of 9.77/10.

Similar in its distribution to York, Brighton & Hove (grouped together as one) sits in sixth on the list with the third highest number of bookshops per person in the top ten, making up for its lower number of public libraries to give it a final score of 9.14/10.

The final South East city on the list, Portsmouth, sits in ninth with a final score of 8.12. As with Brighton & Hove, the relatively high number of bookshops offsets a lower number of public libraries.

Read more - Oxfordshire and the Cotswolds among top regions for female entrepreneurs


Sam is the Regional Editor of Biz News, responsible for both Hampshire and Dorset.

A new recruit to journalism, Sam started writing for the Business Magazine as a freelancer in May of 2022 after completing his degree in English at University College London. His passion for local businesses and ability to tell a story soon caught the attention of the publication’s management team and have led to his meteoric rise.

Sam, who lives in central Reading, takes a particular interest in technology, gaming and food and drink, having been a chef before starting his degree.

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