The good news: the percentage of Americans who report reading novels, short stories, poems, or plays has increased from 46.7 percent in 2002 to 50.2 percent, according to the National Endowment for the Arts.
The bad news: only a little more than half of Americans report reading books that aren’t required by work or school. Now it may well be that these folks would voluntarily read books if their reading time weren’t absorbed by work or school reading. But the average American’s TV intake of 30 hours per week may help explain things as well.
Still, more reading is presumably a good thing. Just don’t look too closely at what’s being read. Now if only we can convince corporate America to replace Who Moved My Cheese with The Power and the Glory.
