Poll shows 1 in 4 Americans read no books last year. But books aren't everything . . .

[Jonathan Lighter]

Speaking from personal experience, not all books that are purchased are ever read.

  More to the point, reading isn't the issue. The issue is the value of what is read. There is, of course, no objective measure of this, but if books (and newspapers and magazines) are losing out to the Web and to T-shirts, the news is not good.

  Especially when one subtracts the huge number of cook books, photo books, and cartoon books sold.

  Of course, it seems perverse to suggest that because a hue and cry rises about once every decade no real problem exists.

  The good news is that Americans are, per capita, conceivably no less literate (in all senses) than in past eras.  The bad news is that for democracy to muddle through (am I being naive here?) they need to read more than T-shirts and MySpace. Pop culture increasingly discourages them from doing so. Instead it encourages epidemic consumerism along with interest in glitzy celebs, sensational crime, spectacular sporting events, frenzied screen violence, and the fast buck.

  As always. But I think it's worse now.

  JL

Dennis Baron <debaron at UIUC.EDU> wrote:
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Sender: American Dialect Society
Poster: Dennis Baron
Subject: Poll shows 1 in 4 Americans read no books last year. But books
aren't everything . . .
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There's a new post on the
Web of Language:

Poll shows 1 in 4 Americans read no books last year. But books =20
aren't everything . . .

27% of Americans read no books last year, according to an AP-Ipsos =20
poll just out. The media immediately reported that the nation=92s =20
literacy is in free fall.

Every time there=92s a literacy crisis, and they come about once a =20
decade, the usual suspects get the blame. Movies, comic books, TV, =20
rock 'n' roll, and now the Internet have all been faulted for this =20
perceived decline in reading, along with permissive parenting, =20
overcrowded schools, and illegal immigration. . . .

Finding a solution to the latest reading crisis won=92t be easy. When =20=

the economy tanks, the Fed increases the money supply to stimulate =20
spending . . . But there=92s no invisible hand steering the nation=92s =20=

literacy. Even the heroic efforts of J. K. Rowling, the literary =20
Alan Greenspan who flooded the market this summer with more than 12 =20
million copies of Harry Potter 7.0, hasn=92t reversed the decline in =20
literacy rates. Yes, people read the Potter series, but a July =20
report by the National Endowment for the Arts shows that most of them =20=

don't go on to read other books.

And yet, Americans do read. Maybe we don't all read books as much as =20=

the NEA would like, but we all go through life surrounded by the =20
printed word, and few of us have the will power to resist reading it.

We drive our cars through gauntlets of signs telling us where we are, =20=

how to get where we=92re going, and what to buy when we get there. And =20=

when we get out of the car . . .



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Dennis Baron home: =20
217-351-6471
Professor of English and linguistics mobile: 217-840-0776
University of Illinois fax: =20=

217-333-4321
608 S. Wright St.
Urbana IL 61801

www.uiuc.edu/goto/debaron

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