One of the most troubling things uncovered by the NEA poll is that people who read are also more likely to do volunteer work or attend plays or ball games. “This study suggests that there are two groups of Americans emerging in this electronic age,” says Gioia. “The first group takes a very active and engaged attitude toward information and society. The other group are increasingly passive consumers of electronic entertainment. Unfortunately, one group is growing–and it’s not the readers.”
Oddly, publishers have responded to the decline in readers by publishing far more titles for people not to read. Two decades ago the number of new books published annually hovered around 60,000, then climbed more than 100,000 in the early ’90s. Last year saw a record 164,609 new titles. “Forty years ago you used to worry that a good book would not be published,” says Dan Frank, editor in chief of Pantheon Books. “Now everything is being published, and a lot of good books are being overlooked.”
Frank agrees with Gioia that publishers need to be more discriminating about what they print, and that the media and educators need to be more aggressive. “The great success that Oprah enjoyed with her book club was because she was performing a process of selection for her audience,” he says. In the meantime the NEA report is enough to make you wonder not just if Americans will ever be on the same page, but if they’ll be on any page at all.
