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"I've always been a firm believer in the three R's: reading TV guide....

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tibor75

tibor75

Banned
...riting to TV guide.....and renewing TV guide"

NEW YORK - The reading of books is on the decline in America, despite Harry Potter (news - web sites) and the best efforts of Oprah Winfrey. A report released Thursday by the National Endowment for the Arts says the number of non-reading adults increased by more than 17 million between 1992 and 2002.

Only 47 percent of American adults read "literature" (poems, plays, narrative fiction) in 2002, a drop of 7 points from a decade earlier. Those reading any book at all in 2002 fell to 57 percent, down from 61 percent.


NEA chairman Dana Gioia, himself a poet, called the findings shocking and a reason for grave concern.

http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/ap/20040708/ap_on_go_ot/reading_at_risk
 
I'm very scared.....I was going to post the same article. People of mediocre intelligence don't like to read because it forces them to use their brain.....
I read a lot, but I mostly read non-fiction. I could give a rat's ass about most new "literary" works and poetry.
 
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stxbuck:

Exactly. Many great non-fiction books are being written, but very few fiction works are coming out that will someday be in an American Literature anthology. Most fiction is very bubble-gum today.

Really, from the last fifty years, how many classics are there in literature? I love it that many bookstores separate "literature" from "fiction."

My guesses as to who American Lit readers of the future will read:

Pynchon, DeLillo, Gaddis, Morrison (if only Beloved), O'Brien. . . I am already running out of names. . .
 
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Tibor,

Thanks for only giving the shortened version of the story. I didn't want to read the whole thing, and probably wouldn't have made it to the end of the article, before becoming disinterested, and moving on to the next post.:biggrin:
 
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Those are pretty sad numbers. As a country, I believe that we're getting dumber every year. It amazes me how many people can't read and comprehend an article, textbook or memo.

What amazes me even more is how many people I see at work or in my MBA classes who can't write a good paper or assemble a meaningful presentation.
 
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Does anyone else think that the way that some grade school English classes are turns people off to literature? I'm NOT making excuses for anyone, believe me, but I think a lot of people get negative connotations with books when they have to write a lot of long-winded and in-depth essays about them. Again, not making excuses for people not reading, just stating my observations, but what I've noticed are students saying things like "Thank God I don't have to take English anymore...no more stupid essays about books!" Of course, it's hard to have tests about books without essays, so I'm not suggesting they are wrong, but I do think it has a negative impact on people...along with the "now now now" culture of immediate visual imagry, of course.
 
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DE

Funny you should mention that.
How many people are in your MBA class?
Knowing what you know now how many would you be willing to hire or go to work for?

I had a class of 50-55. Same situation as you. I would have worked with less than 10 of the people in my class. I actually fired a guy from my group. He never belonged in the program and could not acceptably complete his share of the work.

I think anyone that has read any of my last posts knows this is a big issue to me. We are a TV nation, 30 minute plots with three commercial breaks.

BuckLion

I think at some point we need to let kids read what they want for enjoyment in school. I remember having one class were we actually studied the bible as a novel. We walked around talking about smiting thee and knowing her for weeks. We compared it to soap operas and mini series. We then got to read what we wanted. I think I read the Exorcist which was not approved by more than a few in the school system.

Again I ask, are these the people you want electing your next president?
 
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bucknola said:
Knowing what you know now how many would you be willing to hire or go to work for?

I had a class of 50-55. Same situation as you. I would have worked with less than 10 of the people in my class. I actually fired a guy from my group. He never belonged in the program and could not acceptably complete his share of the work.
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That is an interesting comment, as I felt the same way regarding my MA program in Higher Education Administration. There were 33 people in my class and I felt only 15 of them should have been in the program, of which I would probably only hire about 10 of them--and my program was ranked as the second best in the country!!
 
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Bucklion:

Absolutely! I always hated English. I read - but not what we read in class. I couldn't have cared less about most of that stuff. However, hitting college, I made an about-face from science/math to English. Maybe if we stopped having early English classes suck so much people would get into it.
 
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I ran into much the same in my Master of Management program. I was shocked at the number of people who couldn't do an electronic presentation.

I also hated doing group projects because most people wouldn't pull their share. By the end of the program you knew who you wanted to work with if there was going to be group efforts.
 
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ashlandbuck said:
Literature, smiterature.....Who cares about poetry? Yuch.
All I want is my Sporting news and any Stephen Ambrose book.
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Honestly, I have become less and less of an Ambrose fan. It seems like whatever project he undertook was just a massive ass kissing exercise for whatever subject he picked-Band of Brothers, Lewis and Clark,etc. Nice stories, but no real historical insight,IMO.
 
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