In the States, a recent survey by the National Endowment for the Arts revealed that the percentage of people aged 18 to 24 with experience of reading novels, poetry or plays had fallen by a third over the last 20 years. Given that the same period has seen the rise to retail omnipotence of Wal-Mart, it isn't hard to join the dots.Join the dots!? Is he kidding? The idea that Wal-Mart's rise is responsible for literature's decline is like saying that global warming is caused by too few pirates: correlation does not imply causation.
Unless, of course, you hate supermarkets and like blaming Wal-Mart. Then, it seems, anything goes.
