Accrding to the NEA, there’s a crisis a-brewin’ in reading (http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/ap/20040708/ap_on_go_ot/reading_at_risk); that is, adult Americans aren’t doing it. However, this article rings a bit false to me: with the rise of this here still largely text-based Internet, how can the amount of reading one does decrease? There article makes several mentions of “literature” reading as opposed to other reading…is this somehow more important? I don’t think I’ve read a work of literature in ages (I re-read LotR a few years ago…I think that’s the most recent) but regularly read books of a non-fiction nature, not to mention scores of web-based articles and stories. Is this report overrepresenting the importance of its facts? Or have I slipped (gasp!) into the realm of non-reader-dom?
The way I read it, the article was specifically referring to the reading of books as being in decline. According to their viewpoint, reading blogs or stories on the internet doesn’t count.
I think their concern is that the quality and quantity of books will decline if sales dwindle-- and they have a point. Publishers are in business to make money, after all, and won’t publish “intellectual” books if there’s little market for them. They’d rather publish the latest John Grisham and be assured of a million sales than take a chance on an unknown author, or one who writes on subjects which would only appeal to a small segment of readers.
I don’t see why sales of Literature-with-a-capital-L should suffer. I can see that movies, TV, the internet all provide other sources of entertainment, but wouldn’t this tend to chip into bestseller territory more than it’s chipping into Booker-prize winning stuff.