The poems can be listened to online or downloaded for later. Often the poets read their own work — as is the case for Rita Dove and Todd Boss, above. But former poet laureate Robert Pinsky reads Anne Bradstreet and the poem "Of Money" by Barnabe Googe — the latter, written more than 400 years ago, is still painfully true.

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The site was inspired by Pinsky's "Essential Pleasures: A New Anthology of Poems to Read Out Loud," published by W.W. Norton. All the poets featured on the site are with the publishing house, which has a pretty significant poetry roster. They caught up with many of them at a writers conference earlier this year and asked them "What is poetry for?" The answers include a lot of blank stares and some inspired off-the-cuff responses: "for tresspassing and feeling at home at the same time" and "change ... witness ... celebration."

Respondents making more than $100,000 annually said their average hours online had grown to 22.1 each week from 10.7, while the time they said they spent watching TV sunk to 18.6 hours from 23.7 in the 2003 survey. And they said their time spent listening to the radio had declined slightly. But they said they're regularly reading an average of 15.3 print publications, a notch above 15.1 five years earlier. Readers making more than $250,000 said they read just as many publications, 23.8 now, as they did in 2003.

"The conventional wisdom for print is 'Woe is me,'" said Bob Shullman, president of Ipsos Mendelsohn. "But if you look at this, at least among the affluent population, readership of issues per capita, it's staying constant."

The magazine business has its worries, to be sure: High gas prices are reducing drives to the supermarket while the broader economic slump makes readers think twice before buying new magazines. Newsstand sales, as a result, are looking grim this year. Ad-page sales are equally dour, down 7.42% across the monthlies through September, according to the Media Industry Newsletter. Newspapers, for their part, are fighting far darker demons.

But these problems don't affect the affluent market the same way as they do everyone else, said Ted D'Amico, senior VP-research, Ipsos Mendelsohn. "Readership has held its own among the affluent segment," Mr. D'Amico said. "Why is this the case? There are two factors. One, education. And they can afford magazines."

[C]learly this won't provide a license to lounge all day in your swivel chair, engrossed in Richard and Judy's latest recommendation. It seems that as with smoking, reading is deemed something best done away from your desk. Although as anti-social activities go, it is of course a lot healthier.

The scheme's creators would no doubt agree. Their concept seems to be this: businesses choose a book for all their employees to read which they then bulk buy at discounted prices. Copies are distributed to the grateful masses. Employees then embark on a reading experience which sees smoking rooms transformed into literary salons, breezing with smokeless air and the invigorating blasts of bookish debate. Working relationships flourish, communication skills are universally improved and teams are well and truly built.

Are you feeling cynical yet? Embracing the ameliorative powers of literature is all well and laudable but there do seem to be a few problems here. Not least the matter of what book to chose and who will chose it.

Q: Was this novel timed for an election year?

A: "No, I had the idea in the early 1990s. Writers like to push the envelope so I thought what if you had a president who was a serial killer? I usually get an idea for a book and think about it for quite a while. I kept getting ideas but could not work out how to end it. Then I was in my car about two years ago and the ending popped into my head. It just so happened to come out in 2008 in the midst of a presidential election."

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Q: Any advice for aspiring writers?

A: "The first thing I tell people is not to rush. If you get an idea the natural instinct is to get excited and start writing. I say put it away, work out an outline and an ending first. Scott Turow took 12 years writing "Presumed Innocent" on the train to and from work. The other thing is to do an outline. Work out the book completely before you write so you won't get writer's block. And be organized. People think authors get up at 10 and get a snifter of brandy and pull out a quill pen and let inspiration come. That is not how it works."

"This is the funeral pyre for thought in America today," Wayne told spectators outside his bookstore as he lit the first batch of books. The fire blazed for about 50 minutes before the Kansas City Fire Department put it out because Wayne didn't have a permit to burn them. Wayne said next time he will get a permit. He said he envisions monthly bonfires until his supply - estimated at 20,000 books - is exhausted.

"After slogging through the tens of thousands of books we've slogged through and to accumulate that many and to have people turn you away when you take them somewhere, it's just kind of a knee-jerk reaction," he said. "And it's a good excuse for fun." Wayne said he has seen fewer customers in recent years as people more often get their information from television or the Internet. He pointed to a 2002 study by the National Endowment for the Arts, that found that less than half of adult respondents reported reading for pleasure, down from almost 57 percent in 1982.

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Dozens of customers took advantage of the Sunday's book-burning, searching through those waiting to go into the fire for last-minute bargains. Mike Bechtel paid $10 for a stack of books, including an antique collection of children's literature, which he said he'd save for his 4-year-old son. "I think given the fact it is a protest of people not reading books, it's the best way to do it," Bechtel said. "(Wayne has) made the point that not reading a book is as good as burning it."