Who reads these days? Apparently a lot of people.

Over at Eric Alterman's blog, "Altercation", a post today gives me a bit of hope as a fiction writer.  The conventional wisdom is that people read less these days, and an AP article came out recently claiming as much. In the course of the post, Alterman's guest-blogger, Siva Vaidhyanathan, says:

Perhaps the best-known such survey was done in 2004 by the National Endowment for the Humanities. It was called "Reading at Risk"...It said 57 percent of Americans had not read a work of literary fiction....Many of those people, I am sure, read The Anarchist in the Library and no other book that year. After all, why would you? Oh, neither of these surveys asked non-English language readers what they read. There are many other problems with the surveys. But there are bigger problems with how we share and discuss the findings.

So this study, a summary of which I found here, sounds the alarm about reduced numbers of literary readers in American society.  It does seem a bit disheartening, and it's written with a kind of sky-is-falling message. But in S.V.'s analysis, Americans just have a heck of a lot more entertainment/enrichment options than we did 40 years ago, and the numbers reflect that more than a general devaluation of reading or intellectual pursuit.  Reading is now part of a greater media/literary tradition, inevitable in a more complex and technologically advanced society.

So, no, we are not getting intellectually lazy. Some of us are lucky enough to have jobs that pay us to read. But in general, millions more Americans read and buy books than did 30 years ago. Why? Because there are millions more Americans than there were 30 years ago.

That's just common sense.There's more people doing just about everything these days. And since the study didn't look at people who read in non-English languages, it doesn't account for America's growing foreign-born population, many of whom come from cultures with sophisticated literary traditions.

But DESPITE all these rich new media forms, many of which are very compelling--I mean, we're all sitting here reading the internet--reading is still a major part of American culture. Morning talk shows still feature a variety of authors. And the relationship between books and film grows ever tighter, as more and more books, many of them "literary" fiction, are made into films--which then spur more interest in the books themselves.  And millions and millions continue to read. 93 million adults read a form of literature in the last twelve months. NINETY-THREE MILLION. 

In the study, the authors cite increased participation in writing creatively, which in my view serves to undercut their theory that literary culture is in crisis. Taking the time to write creatively is not a small thing, in fact many people are terrified of the prospect.   Yet  a healthy increase in creative writers over twenty years shows continued engagement with the art form:

Contrary to the overall decline in literary reading, the number of people doing creative writing increased by 30 percent, from 11 million in 1982 to more than 14 million in 2002. However, the number of people who reported having taken a creative writing class or lesson decreased by 2.2 million during the same time period.

If there really was a precipitous intellectual decline in America, I guess I'd expect the # of people who write creatively to drop as well. But it didn't. Clearly something is fueling the literary cycle, and it is more complex than just books.  As for the decline in classes--not surprising, as incomes have eroded over the last few years, and leisure time has decreased.  I wonder how this fits in with the very real proliferation in MFA programs, which seem to have popped up everywhere.  Are fewer people taking classes, but more people taking on serious writing programs?

There's more to literary life than just books, but books are in no danger anytime soon.