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Why Read?, by Mark Edmundson. Bloomsbury, September 2004. $21.95
A National Endowment for the Arts study made news recently when it reported that more than half of American adults did not read a novel, olav. book of Doems or short stories in the preceding twelve months. The report frames with urgency the question: "Why read?"-the title of Mark Edmundson's important new book. Edmundson argues passionately for a return, a rediscovery, of the possibilities great literature has to confront, challenge, and change the receptive reader. He begins by expressing his great concern about the increasing expectations of students to be entertained and coddled in institutions of higher learning. As Edmundson puts it: "this generation of students-steeped in consumer culture before they go off to school; treated as notent consumers hv the university well before thpv arrive. then pandered to from day one-are inclined to see the books they read as a string of entertainments to be enjoyed without effort or languidly cast aside." If this book ever flags, it may be here, early, where Edmundson's language calls to mind a little too much an old-timer shaking his head, bemoaning 'kids theses days.' And yet it is difficult to argue Edmundson's essential point, that...