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The Big Read is a program of the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) designed to restore reading to the center of American culture. The Big Read brings together partners across the country to encourage reading for pleasure and enrichment.
The Big Read answers a big need. Reading at Risk: A Survey of Literary Reading in America, a 2004 report by the NEA, found that not only is literary reading in America declining rapidly among all groups, but that the rate of decline has accelerated, especially among the young.
The Big Read aims to address this crisis by providing citizens with the opportunity to read and discuss a single book within their communities. Moreover, The Big Read encourages lapsed and reluctant readers to rediscover the joy of reading by participating in creative and entertaining programming tied to themes and subjects present in the reading selection.
Browse the contents of The Big Read:
- Fahrenheit 451
- In one of literature's most haunting denunciations of censorship, Ray Bradbury uses the materials of science fiction to tell the story of Guy Montag, a fireman forced to burn books.