This question has been asked before, and there is a response from /u/nhnhnh
^Disclaimer: ^I'm ^no ^expert
Reading as a pastime among the general populace (i.e. people of all classes) was likely not common until the late 19th and early 20th centuries due to class barriers, lack of easy access to books, relatively high levels of illiteracy among the poor, and a shortage of leisure time for most. In the early decades of the 20th century, cheap novels written for general consumption saw a massive increase as readership expanded and selling books became more profitable.
Book Availability:
Literacy was (probably) relatively high during ancient times (edit: in certain civilizations), when the prevalence of records and the written word in everyday life made an inability to read detrimental to the average Roman or Greek.
However, before the invention of the printing press around 1440, books were work intensive to produce. They were handwritten and basically unavailable to the average person. Academics, religious figures, and the upper classes were the only ones with the sufficient resources to access books, and the necessary free time to read them. Religious literature was dominant. Literacy during this period would also have been fairly low, and the prose in literature fairly dense and prolix. Not a huge amount of new popular fiction was being produced. In Europe during the medieval period, the most prevalent book would have been the Bible and records, merchant ledgers, registries etc.
Reading fiction for pleasure came about during the 18th century, with the "rise" of the novel. The novel existed before then, but during the 18th century realism became fashionable in writing, and books started to target a larger audience, leading to the modern interpretation of the novel. Here we see the earliest novels that you are likely familiar with today: The Pilgrim's Progress (1678), Robinson Crusoe (1719), Gulliver's Travels (1726) and more.
Libraries:
Widely accessible and free public libraries would not come about until the mid-19th century with the events like the Public Libraries Act of 1850 in the UK. During the 18th century, subscription libraries became common (books were rented by upper class patrons) and academics would have had access to academic collections dating as far back as the invention of the printing press and earlier, to collections of incunabula (handwritten literature).
Social Taboos
Funnily enough, during the 18th and 19th centuries, reading in bed was considered an immoral behaviour because it required the use of candles for light, which meant it sometimes (read: very rarely) led to fires. Figures such of Johnathan Swift were posthumously criticised when it was discovered that they took books to bed. Reading excessively was sometimes decried in much the same way that excessive television and internet are decried today. Early on, women who read fiction were a particular concern, as some felt they would be unable to differentiate between fiction and reality. Novels in particular were seen as a fanciful waste of time by some.
Edit: wording