Column: The Big Read

When I was a kid, I always had my nose in a book.

I'd read before bed, on car trips or while I was waiting for my mom at the store.

I read by the fireplace in the winter and by the pool in the summer - read so much, in fact, that I got a little grief about it.

But who has time to read these days? If I've got time to sit down with a book for fun, I'm lucky not to fall asleep.

I'm not alone - surveys show only about half of the adults in this country read for leisure or for learning. Literary reading among adults is in steep decline.

We've got plenty of time for television, of course, and other sorts of goofing around.

We push our kids to read because it helps them develop language and critical thinking skills. But reading broadens grown-ups' minds, too. It sparks the imagination, gets those old synapses firing.

This month is The Big Read, an annual National Endowment for the Arts program that encourages communities to read and discuss works of literature. At least 267 communities across the country are participating in The Big Read this year, including Johnson County.

While supplies last, readers can pick up free copies of this year's selection - Ray Bradbury's “Fahrenheit 451” - and free NEA reader's guides at public libraries in Coralville, Iowa City, North Liberty and Solon.

Maybe you had to read the crossover science fiction classic, first published in 1953, in a high school English class, but you've forgotten the plot.

Maybe you never have read the book - where people loll around in a video-induced haze and learning is considered an act for losers. Maybe you read it and loved it - all good reasons to pick it up again now.

Book discussion groups are planned throughout this month for school kids, adults - even inmates at the Oakdale Correctional Facility. You can find a list of discussions and events under the communities tab at www.neabigread.org

Brian Visser, adult services assistant at the Iowa City Public Library, told me there still were plenty of book copies available at that library's fiction desk on Tuesday.

Visser's a big reader himself (“I think it comes with the territory, working at a library,” he said), and of all the media, he said he likes books best.

That's because books are the medium that allows for the biggest ideas, he said. Take “Fahrenheit 451.” “Even though it was written quite a while ago, it still seems relevant,” he said. Actually, he said after thinking a second, maybe even more so now than then.

Jennifer Hemmingsen's column appears on Wednesdays and Saturdays. Contact the writer at (319) 339-3154 or jennifer.hemmingsen@gazcomm.com