Via LLRX.com – The sad reasons why Amazon’s #1 reading city doesn’t belong on the list – In this article David Rothman highlights the backstory on Amazon’s new list of America’s “Top 20 Most Well-Read Cities,” based on its sales of books, magazines and newspapers. As has been the case previously, the winner is Alexandria, Virginia, his hometown, which should be able to afford a book-rich public library system. This scenic Washington suburb on the Potomac River pays the city manager $245K a year. Yet the Alexandria library’s budget for books and other materials is well below the national average despite the needs of the city’s many African-Americans, Hispanics and and low-income people. Around half of Alexandria’s students qualify for free school lunches, and as Rothman’s blog LibraryCity has noted before, they aren’t exactly hearing their parents read Jane Austen to them. Simply put, we’re talking about two different realities–Amazon’s and the actual Alexandria’s.