Learning How to Read Slowly Again - New York Times
By WILLIAM GRIMES
Published: September 22, 2006
What to read? How to read? How much of the the original cultural context do we need to know to appreciate a novel? Review of 4 new books on reading. Makes them sound much more interesting than one would expect (somehow reading a book about reading doesn't seem to me to be as good as actually reading one of the books in question). Still, the Francine Prose one looks particularly promising.

HOW TO READ A NOVEL: A USER’S GUIDE, by John Sutherland; St. Martin’s Press; 260 pages. $21.95. Available in November.

READING LIKE A WRITER: A GUIDE FOR PEOPLE WHO LOVE BOOKS AND FOR THOSE WHO WANT TO WRITE THEM, by Francine Prose; HarperCollins, 273 pages. $23.95.

THE THINGS THAT MATTER: WHAT SEVEN CLASSIC NOVELS HAVE TO SAY ABOUT THE STAGES OF LIFE, by Edward Mendelson;

---
In other news, all about Google's new philanthropic initiative. This interesting idea came up: providing same language subtitles to tv shows to promote literacy.
http://www.planetread.org/