The first part of this book offers a comprehensive survey of American literary reading. It presents a detailed but bleak assessment of the decline of reading's role in the nation's culture. For the first time in modern history, less than half of the adult population now reads literature and these trends reflect a larger decline in other sorts of reading. 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. Writers, teachers, publishers, journalists, librarians and legislators -- will view the situation from their different perspectives and offer their own recommendations. The second part of the book examines a program widely implemented by the U.S. Federal government to improve the reading education of our nation's schools. This paper reveals the solutions that the government has used to rectify the problems that are uncovered in the first paper.