So the National Endowment for the Arts is launching a big program to try to get people to read more books. But Sara Nelson wonders if the whole thing doesn’t sound too much like homework. “I can’t help wondering whether it’s the role of the NEA to be the substitute teacher, a stranger granted authority to give a reading assignment. It’s like homework. Will even the most well-meaning outreach, participation by individual communities and NEA-provided educational materials really inspire a heretofore reluctant reader to pick up the titles he shunned in high school?”