According to a new survey, it has been discovered that most UK adult readers seldom pick up a book that they would want to read for pleasure.

Owing to the fast pace of life, reading as a hobby or a pass time has long been forgotten.A new survey that was recently conducted finds that people in the UK seldom read for pleasure. Four million adults in the country never read books for pleasure, the survey stated. Lack of time was one of the most common reasons cited.

It was also found that men more than women were never likely to pick up a book to read for pleasure. It was found that nearly a quarter of the UK population, which is about 12 million people, picked up a book to read for pleasure less than twice in the last six months.

"Reading can bring so much to your life, from giving you something to discuss with friends to helping you relax or taking you to another world, so it's sad to think that one in four people are in such a reading rut that they hardly ever pick up a book," said Cathy Rentzenbrink from Quick Reads, which has launched a collection of £1 "bite-size books" by authors including Andy McNab and Kathy Lette to encourage more people to read. "This is not polling people who are illiterate - it's a representative sample. And on top of that, the recognised statistic is that one in six adults of working age in the UK struggle with literacy. When you are a reader, it's quite difficult to get your head around the fact that someone might not find reading easy, that you can get to adulthood and not read very well."

2,059 adults took part in the survey.  Twenty nine percent said they didn't have time to read for pleasure while 49 percent of the adults said they'd rather do something else in their free time and another 26 percent said they didn't enjoy reading.

While these numbers could be depressing, experts say it's better than the 25 per cent of Americans over the age of 16 who have not read a book in the last year.