Have You Read a Book…This Year?

By Si Dunn

Be honest: Have you read a book…this century?

A new study from the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) once again highlights a disturbing trend: Americans seem to be doing less reading than ever, and reading skills in most age groups continue to plunge.

Indeed, the new study, titled "To Read or Not to Read: A Question of National Consequence," echoes and amplifies the findings of an earlier NEA survey, “Reading at Risk.” According to CBS News, that 2004 survey “found an increasing number of adult Americans were not even reading one book a year.”

Think about it. In a nation in which we are free to read virtually any book ever printed, we now are choosing to read almost no books at all. We are letting vast quantities of knowledge, experience, imagination and entertainment go to waste while we stare slack-jawed at reruns of America’s Hottest Super Slobs on wall-sized TV screens or hang out online at social websites, exchanging “OMG! LOL! 2 HOT!” messages with digital strangers.

Okay, I’ll confess: Sometimes, I get paid to read. I earn part of my income by reviewing books for a major daily newspaper. And, I read books for research while writing articles, books and screenplays.

But, at the end of each day, when the computer, the TV, the cell phone and the radio are all powered off, and when I can at last enjoy some quiet time, I often grab a book.

To turn it on and boot it up, I simply have to open its front cover. After that, I can be transported to almost any time or any place in the imaginable universe, just by reading a few words. On paper. (Remember paper?)

Have you read a book this year? Have you read a book yet this century?

Would it really hurt you to read two books this next year and maybe help turn the disheartening trend line upward for a change?

You can start by turning off this blog. I won't mind. I'll be reading, too.

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