for one day, a nation of readers

I just realized: on the day the final Harry Potter book came out, in the US alone... one book was purchased for every thirty-six people in the entire U.S.. That is, if you know 36 people, you know at least one person who bought the book. That's not even how many have read, or will read, the book -- the proportion drops further when you add in how many of those copies were for libraries or gifts where a parent reads it first before handing it over to a kid, or vice versa.

One in every thirty-six people in this entire nation.

That's just... wow.