> We're drunk on the ease of implicitly painting people who can't read as much as us as simply dumb modern westerners.

I'm not sure we're doing that. That's certainly not my intention. I know and respect many people who read zero books per year.

I think what we're doing is showing surprise that reading ten books per year is seen as a flex or is worth lying about very publicly, and demonstrating (albeit unscientifically) that it's not that unusual.