I’m not surprised from the outcome of this study, taking in consideration factors like illiteracy & poverty in population dense countries like Egypt, morocco & Iraq. Unfortunately the satellite/Internet Era had a negative impact on the Arab world as most intellects turned their backs on reading & focused on media visuals (Aljazeera) & electronic forums (Elaph) .Maybe this is because of amount of freedom of expression allowed. Even locally, Many columnists have chosen to publish their articles on-line rather than have it banned or brutally censored by local newspaper Editors. If you take a look at the Arabic book section in Jarir or Virgin , you’ll find out that top sold books are mostly translated publication like Dan Brown’s latest novel or an international top 10 non-fiction. There are very few Arab publishers & the amount of books published annually is decreasing because most Arab ( at least the intellectuals) prefer to read electronically