Reading on the rise as economy falters

[Randy Alexander]

If hard times bring about a decline in stupidity, then bring it on, baby!
Randy

On Wed, Jan 14, 2009 at 8:07 AM, Dennis Baron <debaron at illinois.edu> wrote:

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> Poster:       Dennis Baron <debaron at ILLINOIS.EDU>
> Subject:      Reading on the rise as economy falters
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> Reading on the rise as economy falters
>
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> With the economy down, Americans are reading again. According to a new
> report from the National Endowment for the Arts, more than half of
> American adults report reading a novel, poem or play in the past 12
> months. It looks like reading may be an indicator of hard times.
>
> The NEA, whose budget was in decline even before the economy went
> South, is celebrating the first increase in "literary reading" in a
> quarter of a century, an exciting reversal in the long downturn in
> American literacy.
>
> According to the latest figures from the Census Bureau, all of us,
> whites, blacks, Hispanics, men, women, and children, are reading more
> novels, and young adults, ages 18-24, have shown the biggest increase
> of all, going from a 20% decline in 2002 to a 21% gain in 2008. . . .
>
> [and]  the NEA's Dana Gioia is thrilled that today's Index of Leading
> Literary Indicators looks a lot healthier than the Dow . . .
>
> read the rest of the post on the Web of Language:
> http://illinois.edu/goto/weboflanguage
>
> Dennis Baron
> Professor of English and Linguistics
> Department of English
> University of Illinois
> 608 S. Wright St.
> Urbana, IL 61801
>
> office: 217-244-0568
> fax: 217-333-4321
>
> http://illinois.edu/goto/debaron
>
> read the Web of Language:
> http://illinois.edu/goto/weboflanguage
>
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--
Randy Alexander
Jilin City, China
My Manchu studies blog:
http://www.bjshengr.com/manchu

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