Last week’s NEA study that reported the decline of reading in America suggested that an amazing number of people still read. “For example, if one were to ask most of my conservative friends to name the percentage of Americans who read fiction, poetry or plays, they’d likely have guessed 25% at most, not the actual 46.7%. Extrapolating its data to actual readers, the Endowment finds the number of people reading or listening to poetry in 2002 was 30 million. Thirty million! What are they reading? If only 20,000 of them read John Donne, Wallace Stevens or Yeats just for the pleasure of their company, the nation’s mental health is more certain than we imagined. Seven million read plays. That seven million Americans would read a play for pleasure is astonishing.”