Fewer Noses Stuck in Books in America, Survey Finds (NY Times):
Oprah's Book Club may help sell millions of books to Americans, and slam poetry may have engendered a youthful new breed of wordsmith, but the nation is still caught in a tide of indifference when it comes to literature. That is the sobering profile of a new survey to be released today by the National Endowment for the Arts, which describes a precipitous downward trend in book consumption by Americans and a particular decline in the reading of fiction, poetry and drama.
The survey, called "Reading at Risk," is based on data from "The Survey of Public Participation in the Arts," [73-page PDF] conducted by the Census Bureau in 2002. [Which means it's old news.] Among its findings are that fewer than half of Americans over 18 now read novels, short stories, plays or poetry; that the consumer pool for books of all kinds has diminished; and that the pace at which the nation is losing readers, especially young readers, is quickening. In addition it finds that the downward trend holds in virtually all demographic areas. [...]
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on Thursday, July 08, 2004 at 8:41 AM.
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