The National Reader Survey

This chapter describes how the 2013 Dutch National Reader Survey was organized and what the main outcomes were, in such a way that the survey can be adapted for use in other countries or language areas. It presents the criteria for the selection of the four hundred plus one novels that participants could rate and zooms in on the four main categories of books on the list. This is followed by a description of the kinds of readers that took part and which books received the highest and lowest mean scores for general quality (how good the book was) and literary quality. It elaborately quotes from the motivations readers gave for their ratings and analyses the main trends by applying keyword analysis.