Today's Metro reports on a recent report put out by the National Endowment for the Arts. They found that the number of non-reading adults has gone up by more than 17 million between 1992 and 2002.
This is bad news. People need to read more! The report was not broken down from city to city but the region which includes New York (mid-Atlantic) was ranked 5th best of 9 regions. Number one was the Mountain region. It also stated that 47 percent of people living in cities read literature. C'mon NYC we can do better than this!
The NY Department of Cultural Affairs has a number of programs that are geared towards getting us to read more. There are also a number of events held at bars that focus on the literati (KGB's reading series, Lindsays Ritalin Reading Series at Pianos, to name a few). This is smart, all good writers found inpiration in bars. Sebastian Junger even opened a bar, which is reported to have a White Horse vibe.
So what can we do to make our city number one. Should Gothamist start a reading series? A book club? Let us know! In the meantime we're heading over to the Strand (which is expanding it's 8 miles of books to 18!)
Read more about reactions to this study
and remember Books are sexy
