The civic reading programs that seem to be springing up all across America have a suspicious ring of junior high to them, writes Patti Thorn: “Reading is personal; do we really want to follow a crowd in our march to literacy?” But there does seem to be some merit to the idea of encouraging average folks to dissect the plot of a community-read book the way we all used to hash over the latest episode of Seinfeld, and the book Denver has chosen for its citywide read is uniquely positioned to promote not only literacy, but community as well.