Me No Likey Reed Bok Much, Fer Wat?

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Reading, after a certain age, diverts the mind too much from its creative pursuits. Any man who reads too much and uses his own brain too little falls into lazy habits of thinking.

--Albert Einstein

All right, all you out there who are updating the theory of relativity or are this close to a working model for time travel, you are excused. As for the rest of us, well, we aren't in danger of blocking the creative juices of our mind through that fancy book-readin' because the only lazy habits of thinking we've succumbed to is trying to figure out a way to use a Wiffle ball bat to retrieve the remote control that is all the way over on the other side of the couch...screw it, I can sit through another episode of Law & Order... oh good I've already seen it, this is the one where that guy killed his landlord, McCoy tricks him into screaming a confession in the courtroom...this show is so much easier to watch when I already know what happens and don't have to follow all those confusing details...zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

A recent National Endowment for the Arts study announced (with much consternation from Librarians Local 647) that "literary reading is in dramatic decline with fewer than half of American adults now reading literature." There has been an overall decline of 10 percent from 1982-2002 with the youngest age groups eschewing books like homework and lima beans -- down 28 percent. Shockingly, the most important factor in determining who is an everyday reader ("literary" seems a bit strong; this survey could include Tom Clancy, Candace Bushnell or The Da Vinci Code) is level of education, damned if people with Masters degrees aren't more likely to enjoy Philip Roth than the GED'ers who prefer his cousin, David Lee.