A new report from the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA), "Reading at Risk," documents an ongoing drop in the number of readers in this country, especially readers of fiction, poetry and drama.

"The NEA report sent an electric shock throughout the publishing world," said Pat Schroeder, Association of American Publishers (AAP) president and CEO. "Although it confirmed something that we've suspected, quantifying the decline in literary readership is really chilling."

Based on a U.S. Census Bureau study that polled more than 17,000 adults, the report showed that fewer than half of Americans over the age of 18 (46.7%) had read a novel, short story, play or poem in the preceding year-a decline of 10% in literary reading between 1982 and 2002.

Schroeder noted that although the report documents a decline across all age, race, gender and ethnic groups, the sharpest fall-off was among 18- to 34-year-olds.

Although the news about literary reading is grim, Schroeder did note one bright spot in the book-reading picture-the immense popularity of serious nonfiction, political books and biographies.

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