Leighton, 'Study'

For the first time in more than 25 years, American adults are reading more literature, according to a new study by the National Endowment for the Arts. Reading on the Rise documents a definitive increase in rates and numbers of American adults who read literature, with the biggest increases among young adults, ages 18-24. This new growth reverses two decades of downward trends cited previously in NEA reports such as Reading at Risk and To Read or Not To Read.

“At a time of immense cultural pessimism, the NEA is pleased to announce some important good news. Literary reading has risen in the U.S. for the first time in a quarter century,” said NEA Chairman Dana Gioia. “This dramatic turnaround shows that the many programs now focused on reading, including our own Big Read, are working. Cultural decline is not inevitable.”

Maybe not. But any statistician will tell you to wait for the next survey, and maybe the one after that: it may be a dead cat bounce. Still, it’s way better than more decline. Pity about poetry and drama – still sinking.

The full report can be downloaded here, and in the same place you can find a six page summary of the Reading at Risk report which started the heartburn.

Dr Moody concludes her page:

Since the existence of large fan communities generates money and favorable partisan coterie publicity, it is in the interest of anyone who works or becomes involved with any projects involving Austen and (lately increasingly) Burney to begin with an exaggerated respect; any sharp criticism must be presented in somewhat disguised forms.The phenomenon of the cult figure or group of texts is an important one in our era, and we need frank discussion of how different cults arise, what imagined characteristics cult figures are typically endowed with by their fans, what kinds of people become fervent fans of literary writers and their characters, and what is the effect of such cults on serious study of works of the imagination.

We could do all that. Or we could just tip-toe away. They’re making too much noise to notice.