Writing for The New York Times, publishing beat reporter Motoko Rich mixes things up by reporting some good news for a change. According to a survey conducted by the National Endowment for the Arts, adults are reading more books just for the pleasure of it:
“‘There has been a measurable cultural change in society’s commitment to literary reading,’ said Dana Gioia, chairman of the National Endowment for the Arts. ‘In a cultural moment when we are hearing nothing but bad news, we have reassuring evidence that the dumbing down of our culture is not inevitable.'”
The NEA initiative is called The Big Read, and it has its own blog. Here’s the link to the survey, though it doesn’t seem to be loading for me at the moment.
I haven’t had enough coffee yet to figure out how they might do this, but it would be neat if comics publishers participated in some way. The Times article doesn’t specifically mention graphic fiction, but I don’t get the impression that it’s excluded. I’d like to see the NEA ask if the increase in reading for pleasure (or just what portion of reading for pleasure) is contributed by comics.