Reading Crisis Con Game, and Oprah

n+1 features an intriguing article on the nature of the supposed reading crisis, the tactics the contemporary authors are using to stall the Grim Reaper, and the influence of Oprah. After listing some marketing tactics used by ambitious writers, The Reading Crisis states that the activity of reading, “flat on its back, encounters these clown-suit paramedics with nitrous in their tanks instead of oxygen, it ought to get to its feet, wheezing and weak as it is, and run.

I don’t necessarily agree with everything in this piece, but it raises some interesting ideas.