The Big Read is an initiative of the National Endowment for the Arts designed to restore reading to the center of American culture. The NEA presents the Big Read in partnership with the Institute of Museum and Library Services and in cooperation with Arts Midwest. The Big Read brings together partners across the country to encourage reading for pleasure and enlightenment.

The Boeing Company will sponsor the Big Read in military communities. The Kellogg Foundation and the Community Foundations of America also will support the Big Read through a matching grants program for participating communities.

The program was created in response to the National Endowment for the Arts report Reading at Risk: A Survey of Literary Reading in America, which identified a critical decline in literary reading among American adults. [Reading at Risk can be downloaded in PDF from the NEA web site.]

The Big Read provides citizens with the opportunity to read and discuss a single book within their communities. This initiative comprises innovative reading programs in selected communities; expansive outreach and publicity campaigns, including television, radio, and print publicity; compelling resources for discussing outstanding literature; and an extensive Web site offering comprehensive information on the authors and their works.

More than 200 communities nationwide will participate in the Big Read for 2007. Each community’s program will last approximately one month and include a kick-off event to launch the program locally; major events devoted specifically to the book (panel discussions, lectures, public readings, and the like); events using the book as a point of departure (film screenings, theatrical readings, and so forth); and book discussions in diverse locations and aimed at a wide range of audiences.

The Arts Endowment is addressing this problem in our sphere. Everything the Arts Endowment does, it does in partnership. With communities across the country as our partners, by awarding grants and by improving access to the art of literature, the Arts Endowment is working toward reversing the decline in reading.