LEISURE: REDISCOVERING THE JOY OF TEXT

Reading is a lot like sex. People who rarely read can feel abnormal. People who read all the time can feel abnormal. And because so much reading is done in private, behind closed doors (often bedroom doors), no one really knows what normal is. A book a day? A month? A year? Do self-help books count, or only novels? What if they're on tape?

In the absence of a Kinsey-style report on American reading habits, one can only guess what's going on in the dormitories, airport lounges and on the porch swings of the land. And yet there are signs of a kind of reading renaissance--from the rise of espresso-serving superstores to the emergence, on national TV and in countless living rooms, of book clubs and reading groups. At the least, it appears, reading books (or listening to them in the Jeep) is to the 1990s what gymgoing was to the '80s: something we plan to do, something we want to do and, by all appearances, something everyone else is doing, even Oprah viewers. Perhaps primarily Oprah viewers.

"There has been a vast increase in the number of book outlets, in the number of readers and in the ways that books get to consumers," says William Phillips, editor in chief of Little, Brown. One new way books are making their way into readers' hands is via the Internet. Amazon.com an online bookstore, is experiencing soaring volume, while electronic literary journals, such as Salon salon1999.com) are increasingly popular. Random House randomhouse.com) Time Warner Trade Publishing pathfinder.com/twep and Simon & Schuster simonsays.com are among the growing number of publishers with their own Websites. Far from killing off the book, computers seem to be reinforcing its dominance. The Internet is still overwhelmingly text-based, promoting literacy in general, and yet the screen has not replaced the page. Says Barnes & Noble vice president Lisa Herling: "I don't think anyone would ever take a computer to bed or to the beach to read."

Someone might take a tape, though. To listen is not to read (especially if the book is abridged), but it's close enough for many. Audiobooks, long tainted by their association with motivational infomercial gurus, got a sorely needed cultural seal of approval when Hillary Clinton received a Grammy Award for her spoken version of her book, It Takes a Village. The market for audiobooks is booming. That may be, in part, because they are compact and convenient and offer pseudo intimacy with sages and celebrities. The forthcoming John F. Kennedy: A Journey to Camelot by Paul Werth will be read by Sidney Poitier and Caroline Kennedy. Slightly less ritzy (intended, perhaps, to be played in Dodge pickups instead of Lexuses) is Waylon Jennings' rendition of Waylon: An Autobiography. To those who scoff at such books as "ear candy," Seth D. Gershel, publisher of Simon & Schuster Audio, has a snappy answer: "If you'd rather be counting from 1 to 10 over and over again while driving, that's your preference."