Is National Read a Book Day a public holiday?

No. It is an informal observance, not a federal or public holiday, so schools, banks, and offices stay open as usual.

Did the Library of Congress create the day in 1996?

No. That claim circulates online but has no supporting record, and it conflicts with the day's later, organic emergence in the late 2000s.

Is September 6 really Nora Ephron's birthday?

No. The screenwriter Nora Ephron was born on May 19, 1941, so the popular story that the date honors her is false, and no source documents any real reason for September 6.

Is this the same as International Literacy Day?

No. International Literacy Day is a separate UNESCO observance on September 8, two days later, declared in 1966 and observed worldwide.

How do you celebrate National Read a Book Day?

Read a book, in any format you like. Many people finish something they had started, borrow a title from the library, or read aloud to a child.

901 saved#15 of 6,224

National Read a Book Day

A celebratory observance on September 6 encouraging people to set aside time to read a book and enjoy reading of every kind.

Sunday

September 2026

Last updated February 26, 2026 · by the Holiday Calendar Team

Have an update or spot an error?

YEARLY DATESeptember 6

OBSERVED INUnited States

CATEGORYSchool

SUBCATEGORYLiteracy

ORIGIN

Community Origin

FOUNDING ENTITY

Not documented

FIRST OBSERVED

Not documented

HOW THE HOLIDAY CAME TO BE

A reading day no one signed.

No verified creator or founding record has been identified for National Read a Book Day. It appears to have emerged organically in the United States in the late 2000s as an informal encouragement to read, and was widely recognized by the mid-2010s.

+ Know the story? Submit a founder Help us complete this holiday

INTRO

The cheapest health habit in America fits in your bag

PHOTO

A Yale study followed 3,635 older Americans for more than a decade and found that the ones who read books outlived the ones who did not. The book readers carried a 20% lower risk of dying over the 12 years, which worked out to a survival edge of close to two years. The effect held for books in particular, not newspapers or magazines.

National Read a Book Day, every September 6, asks for something far smaller than two years. It asks for one book, for one day.

The timing is pointed. Americans are reading less than at almost any moment on record, even as the case for picking up a book keeps getting stronger.

ORIGINS

Read a Book Day history

INTRODUCTION

The holiday itself has almost no paper trail. Search for who started National Read a Book Day and the records run dry: no proclamation, no founding organization, no first ceremony. It simply began circulating in the United States in the late 2000s and was a fixture of the September calendar by the mid-2010s.

Two stories often fill that silence, and both are wrong. One claims the Library of Congress created the day in 1996. The other says September 6 honors the screenwriter Nora Ephron. Ephron was born on May 19, not September 6, and no source supports the Library of Congress account.

CHAPTER 01

An older, documented neighbor

The calendar already held a reading day with a clear birth certificate. UNESCO declared International Literacy Day in 1966, and it has been observed every September 8 since 1967. That day sits two squares away from this one, fully sourced where National Read a Book Day is blank. The contrast is the point: one observance was built by an institution, the other by readers passing it along.

CHAPTER 02

Why a reading day now

The backdrop has shifted under the holiday. By the federal government's own count, fewer than half of American adults read a book for pleasure in 2022, the National Endowment for the Arts found in its 2022 survey of public participation in the arts. The share reading novels or short stories fell to its lowest level since the survey began in 1992.

A founderless day that nudges people back toward a book lands differently against that number. National Read a Book Day did not start as a campaign to reverse a decline, because it did not start as anything anyone wrote down. It just kept getting passed forward, and the reason it still matters is the same reason it spread: a book is a small ask with an outsized return.

BY THE NUMBERS

National Read a Book Day by the Numbers

75%: US adults who read a book last year
12.6: Books read per US adult, 2021
64%: US readers who chose print over digital
28%: US adults at the lowest literacy tier, 2023
20%: Lower mortality risk for book readers

GOOD TO KNOW

Surprising facts about National Read a Book Day

Reading is slipping fastest among the most educated

Gallup found college graduates read about six fewer books in 2021 than in the 2002 to 2016 stretch, 14.6 versus 21.1, the steepest drop of any group it measured.

The book club is rarer than its reputation

Only 7% of US adults belonged to a book club in the past year, Pew found in 2025, and women were twice as likely to join as men.

American kids are at a reading low

On the 2024 Nation's Report Card, about 40% of fourth graders scored below the NAEP Basic level in reading, the largest share since 2002.

The decline is fewer finishes, not fewer readers

Gallup found the recent drop came from readers finishing fewer titles, not from people giving up reading altogether. The share who read no books at all, about 17%, held steady with past decades.

Men and women read different amounts

In the NEA's 2022 data, women out-read men on books by a wide margin, with a far larger share of women reading a novel or short story in the prior year.

WHY THIS DAY MATTERS

Why We Love National Read a Book Day

HEALTH

The payoff came through the brain, not the wallet.

The Yale researchers traced the book readers' survival advantage to sharper cognition, not to wealth, education, or health at the start. Deep, sustained reading is the kind of mental work that gives, and a library book is the cheapest way to do it.

LITERACY

Adult reading skills are sliding

The share of US adults stuck at the lowest literacy tier jumped nine points between 2017 and the 2023 federal PIAAC assessment. A day built around the simple act of reading meets that trend head on.

ACCESS

It costs nothing to take part

A library card turns the whole observance free, with no ticket, app, or subscription to buy. That makes National Read a Book Day one of the few cultural days anyone can join at no cost, whatever their budget.

GET INVOLVED

How to Celebrate National Read a Book Day

Finish a book you abandoned

Pull the half-read book off your nightstand and read it to the last page. A single completed book is the simplest, most direct way to mark the day.

BORROW

Borrow instead of buy

Get a free library card and check out something you would never pay for. Most US readers still choose print, and the library is where print costs nothing.

READ

Read aloud to a child

Spend twenty minutes reading a picture book or chapter to a kid in your life. Early reading skills are slipping for American children, and read-aloud time is one of the simplest supports there is.

START

Start a two-person book club

Pick one title with a friend and set a date to talk about it. Book clubs are rare, so even a pair of you already beats the odds.

SWAP

Swap a screen hour for a chapter

Trade one stretch of scrolling for a chapter before bed. The study behind the day measured its longevity benefit in regular book reading, not in marathon sessions.

Test your knowledge