For the first time in modern history, less than half of the U.S. adult population now reads literature, according to a comprehensive survey recently released by the National Endowment for the Arts. Reading at Risk: A Survey of Literary Reading in America presents a detailed but bleak assessment of the decline of reading's role in the nation's culture and is not a report that the National Endowment for the Arts is happy to issue.Anyone who loves literature or values the cultural, intellectual, and political importance of active and engaged literacy in American society will respond to this report with grave concern.