--- title: Jimmy Kimmel Man on the Street Questions: Name a Book description: Jimmy Kimmel asked people if they could name a book on Jimmy Kimmel Live! and everyone came up short. canonical: https://time.com/5282168/jimmy-kimmel-man-on-the-street-books/ author: Ashley Hoffman article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2018-05-18T12:57:18.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-04-13T07:52:56.558Z og:title: Jimmy Kimmel Asked People to Name a Book With Sad Results og:description: "The Jungle Book?" og:url: https://time.com/5282168/jimmy-kimmel-man-on-the-street-books/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltcf9d8f01fe415dfd/698930b3e76ad20fde632099/jimmykimmellivecanyounameabook.jpeg?branch=production&width=3840&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 675 og:image:alt: JimmyKimmelLiveCanYouNameaBook og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Jimmy Kimmel Asked People to Name a Book With Sad Results twitter:description: "The Jungle Book?" twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltcf9d8f01fe415dfd/698930b3e76ad20fde632099/jimmykimmellivecanyounameabook.jpeg?branch=production&width=3840&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # Jimmy Kimmel Challenged People to Name a Book and It Went as Well as You'd Expect by [Ashley Hoffman](https://time.com/author/ashley-hoffman/) ## Ashley Hoffman May 18, 2018 12:57 PM UTC  by [Ashley Hoffman](https://time.com/author/ashley-hoffman/) ## Ashley Hoffman May 18, 2018 12:57 PM UTC [Jimmy Kimmel](http://time.com/5200561/jimmy-kimmel-lie-witness-news-street-interviews/) might have just found a new cause to champion: literacy. “According to a recent study from the [PEW Research Center](http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2018/03/23/who-doesnt-read-books-in-america/), almost 1 in 4 Americans has not read a book in the past year,” he began during Thursday’s [_Jimmy Kimmel Live!_](http://time.com/4473441/jimmy-kimmel-matt-damon-feud-history-timeline/) episode. But the late night host wasn’t convinced. “That actually seems high to me. I bet it’s even fewer than that,” he said. The decline of the American bibliophile concerned him so deeply that he sent his crew out to the streets of Los Angeles to ask pedestrians to name a book, any book. The responses compiled were sufficiently discouraging. What’s a title of a book? No one in the video knew. But that doesn’t mean they didn’t try. One man offered “The Jungle Book.” An actual librarian “blanked out on books,” and it only got worse from there. Below watch the full “Can You Name a Book? ANY Book???” clip from [_Jimmy Kimmel Live!_](http://time.com/5276235/diane-keaton-jimmy-kimmel-kiss/) ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/5282168/jimmy-kimmel-man-on-the-street-books/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/5282168/jimmy-kimmel-man-on-the-street-books/"},"headline":"Jimmy Kimmel Challenged People to Name a Book and It Went as Well as You'd Expect","datePublished":"2018-05-18T12:57:18.000Z","dateModified":"2026-04-13T07:52:56.558Z","description":"The results were disappointing to say the least","url":"https://time.com/5282168/jimmy-kimmel-man-on-the-street-books/","keywords":["Newsfeed","Late Night Television","onetime"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltcf9d8f01fe415dfd/698930b3e76ad20fde632099/jimmykimmellivecanyounameabook.jpeg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Ashley Hoffman","jobTitle":null,"url":"https://time.com/author/ashley-hoffman/"}],"articleSection":"","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltcf9d8f01fe415dfd/698930b3e76ad20fde632099/jimmykimmellivecanyounameabook.jpeg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675,"headline":"JimmyKimmelLiveCanYouNameaBook","caption":"","creditText":"","representativeOfPage":true}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/tag/time-section-newsfeed/","name":"Newsfeed"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/5282168/jimmy-kimmel-man-on-the-street-books/","name":"Jimmy Kimmel Challenged People to Name a Book and It Went as Well as You'd Expect"}}]}] ```