Fewer Noses Stuck in Books in
July 8, 2004
By Bruce Weber
Oprah's Book Club may help sell millions of books toAmericans,
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 "
"The Survey of Public Participation in the Arts," conducted
by the Census Bureau in 2002. 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.
"What this study does is give us accurate numbers that
support our worst fears about American reading," said Dana
Gioia, the chairman of the endowment, who will preside over
a discussion of the survey results at the New York Public
Library this morning. "It quantifies what people have been
observing anecdotally, but the news is that it has been
happening more rapidly and more pervasively than anyone
thought possible.
in every region, at every educational level and within
every ethnic group," he said, calling the survey results
"deeply alarming."
The study, with its stark depiction of how Americans now
entertain, inform and educate themselves, does seem likely
to fuel debate over issues like the teaching and
encouragement of reading in schools, the financing of
literacy programs and the prevalence in American life of
television and the other electronic media that have been
increasingly stealing time from readers for a couple of
generations at least. It also raises questions about the
role of literature in the contemporary world.
The survey also makes a striking correlation between
readers of literature and those who are socially engaged,
noting that readers are far more likely than nonreaders to
do volunteer and charity work and go to art museums,
performing arts events and ballgames. "Whatever good things
the new electronic media bring, they also seem to be
creating a decline in cultural and civic participation,"
Mr. Gioia said. "Of literary readers, 43 percent perform
charity work; only 17 percent of nonreaders do. That's not
a subtle difference."
Still, in a world where information is more readily
available than ever, where people know more than they ever
have, and where visual acuity is becoming ever more
crucially utilitarian, it is worth asking: What, if
anything, does literature's diminished importance to
Americans represent? The study has already produced
conflicting reactions.
"It's not just unfortunate, it's real cause for concern,"
said James Shapiro, a professor of English at
think democracy depends on people who read, write, think
and reflect - which is what literature advances - then we
have to invest in what it takes to promote that."
On the other hand Kevin Starr, librarian emeritus for the
state of California and a professor of history at the
University of Southern California, said that if close to 50
percent of Americans are reading literature, "that's not
bad, actually."
"In an age where there's no canon, where there are so many
other forms of information, and where we're returning to
medieval-like oral culture based on television," he said,
"I think that's pretty impressive, quite frankly." Mr.
Starr continued: "We should be alarmed, I suppose, but the
horse has long since run out of the barn. There are two
distinct cultures that have evolved, and by far the smaller
is the one that's tied up with book and high culture. You
can get through American life and be very successful
without anybody ever asking you whether Shylock is an
anti-Semitic character or whether `Death in
better than `The Magic Mountain.' "
The Census Bureau study upon which the survey was based
measured the number of adult Americans who attended live
performances of theater, music, dance and other arts;
visited museums; watched broadcasts of arts programs; or
read literature in the past year. The survey sample -
17,135 people - makes it one of the largest studies ever
conducted on the subject of arts participation, and the
data were compared with similar studies from 1982 and 1992.
In the literature segment respondents were asked whether
they had, during the previous 12 months, without the
impetus of a school or work assignment, read any novels,
short stories, poems or plays in their leisure time.
Their answers show that just over half - 56.6 percent -
read a book of any kind in the previous year, down from
60.9 percent a decade earlier. Readers of literature fell
even more precipitously, to 46.7 percent of the adult
population, down from 54 percent in 1992 and 56.9 percent
in 1982, which means that in the last decade the erosion
accelerated significantly. The literary reading public lost
5 percent of its girth between 1982 and 1992; another 14
percent dropped away in the following decade. And though
the number of readers of literature is about the same now
as it was in 1982 - about 96 million people - the American
population as a whole has increased by almost 40 million.
The survey found that men (37.6 percent) were doing less
literary reading than women (55.1 percent); that Hispanics
(26.5 percent) were doing less than African-Americans (37.1
percent) and whites (51.4 percent); but that all categories
were declining. The steepest declines of any demographic
group are among the youngest adults. In 1982, 59.8 percent
of 18-to-24-year-olds read literature; by 2002 that figure
had dropped to 42.8 percent. In the 25-to-34 age group, the
percentage of literary readers dropped to 47.7 from 62.1
over the same period.
"This won't be news to publishers," said Jim Milliott,
senior editor for news at the trade journal Publishers
Weekly. "It just confirms what we've known from other
fragmented surveys all along."
Last month the Association of American Publishers released
worldwide sales figures for 2003, indicating that total
sales of consumer book products increased 6 percent for the
year. Much of the increase can be accounted for by sales of
audio books, juvenile titles and nonpaper e-books, sold
online. Adult hardbound books, adult paperbacks and
mass-market paperbacks all showed relatively flat revenues,
in spite of price increases.
The one category of book to rise markedly was that of
religious texts, with total sales of $337.9 million, 36.8
percent over the previous year.
From the
New York Times