What this author only hints at, and the NEA overlooks entirely, is that literacy and the processing of information in text format has been radically transformed by modern communication.

For instance, when I was young people dispaired that the art of letter writing and written expression would disappear entirely. On the contrary, with email, blogging, and other assorted media, we are as a society writing more than ever before.

And it's not just the privileged and educated who get to read and write. Writing has become a daily habit for billions of people around the world, and one of the most egalitarian ways of communicating in the developing world.

And the NEA also fails to appreciate that the way we live our lives has been altered by how we process information. The line between reading for pleasure, reading for work, reading for education, and reading for spirituality is now hopelessly, and wonderfully blurred.

Can't agree more, but the downside of it is the hand writing, which has almost disappeared and will eventually be extinct.