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I write articles on science, medicine, nature, culture and other matters for the New York Times Magazine, The Atlantic, Slate, National Geographic, Scientific American Mind, and other publications, and am working on my fourth book, The Orchid and the Dandelion, which expands on my recent December 2009 Atlantic article. My previous books include Reef Madness: Charles Darwin, Alexander Agassiz, and the Meaning of Coral, which traces the strangest but most forgotten controversy in Darwin's career — an elemental dispute running some 75 years.

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Caleb Crain on how higher reading numbers might not be such great news

Posted on: January 13, 2009 4:20 PM, by David Dobbs

Caleb ~~Carr~~ Crain on why he remains pessimistic about reading despite the recent National Endowment of the Arts report showing a reversal last year in a 25-year decline in reading. It's a good consideration of several ways i which the data might be a mismeasure or a misleading anomaly.

Why aren't I celebrating the new numbers about the reading of literature? First, the numbers are good, but they're not that
Second, another of the NEA's measures shows a continued, stubborn decrease. To the question "With the exception of books required for work or school, did you read any books during the last 12 months?" the proportion of respondents saying yes dropped from 56.6 percent in 2002 to 54.3 percent in 2008. The proportion of Americans who said in 2008 that they read some literature in the previous twelve months may be higher than it was in 2002, but it's lower than it was in 1992, 1985, and 1982. Moreover, the same is true of the rates in the eighteen- to twenty-four-year-old bracket. Over the longer span, we're still talking about a decline.

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