The number of Americans who read books has been declining for thirty years， and those who do read have become proud of， even a bit over-identified with， the enterprise. Alongside the tote bags you can find T-shirts， magnets， and buttons printed or sewn with covers of classic novels： the Web site Etsy sells tights printed with poems by Emily Dickinson. A spread in The Paris Review featured literature-inspired paint-chip colors. The merchandising of reading has a curiously undifferentiated flavor， as if what you read mattered less than that you read. In this climate of embattled bibliophilia，a new subgenre of books about books has emerged， a mix of literary criticism， autobiography， self-help， and immersion journalism： authors undertake reading stunts to prove that reading—anything—still matters.

       “I thought of my adventure as Off-Road or Extreme Reading，” Phyllis Rose writes in “The Shelf： From LEQ to LES，” the latest stunt book， in which she reads through a more or less random shelf of library books. She compares her voyage， to Ernest Shackleton's explorations in the Antarctic. “However， I like to sleep under a quilt with my head on a goose down pillow，” she writes.“So I would read my way into the unknown--into the pathless wastes， into thin air， with no reviews， no best-seller lists， no college curricula， no National Book Awards or Pulitzer Prizes， no ads， no publicity， not even word of mouth to guide me.”

       She is not the first writer to set off on armchair expedition. A J. Jacobs， a self-described“human guinea pig，” spent a year reading the encyclopedia for“The Know-It-All： One Man's Humble Quest to Become the Smartest Person in the World”（2004）. Ammon Shea read all of the Oxford English Dictionary for his book“Reading the OED： One Man， One Year， 21， 730 Pages”（2008）. In“The Whole Five Feet”（2010）， Christopher Beha made his way through the Harvard Classics during a year in which he suffered serious illness and had a death in the family. In“Howard's End Is on the Landing”（2010）， Susan Hill limited herself to reading only the books that she already owned. Such“extreme reading”requires special personal traits： perseverance， stamina， a craving for self—improvement， and obstinacy.

       Rose fits the bill. A retired English professor， she is the author of popular biographies of Virginia Woolf and Josephine Baker， as well as“The Year of Reading Proust”（1997）， a memoir of her family life and the manners and mores of the Key West literary scene. Her best book is“Parallel Lives”（1983）， a group biography of five Victorian marriages. （It is filled with marvellous details and set pieces， like the one in which John Ruskin， reared on hairless sculptures of female nudes， defers consummating his marriage to Effie Gray for so long that she sues for divorce Rose is consistently generous， knowledgeable， and chatty， with a knock for connecting specific incidents to large social trends. Unlike many biblio-memoirists， she loves network television and is un-nostalgic about print；in“The Shelf” she says that she prefers her e-reader to certain moldy paperbacks.

       The way most of us choose our reading today is simple. Someone posts a link， and we click on it. We set out to buy one book， and Amazon suggests that we might like another. Friends and retailers know our preferences， and urge recommendations on us. The bookstore and the library could assist you， too-the people who work there may even know you and track your habits-but they are organized in an impersonal way. Shelves and open stacks offer not only immediate access to books but strange juxtapositions. Arbitrary classification breeds surprises-Nikolai Gogol next to William Golding， Clarice Lispector next to Penelope Lively. The alphabet has no rationale， agenda，or preference.

       If you have got kids， here is a nasty truth： they are probably not very special， that is， they are average， ordinary， and unremarkable. Consider the numbers of those applications your daughter is sending to Ivy League schools， for instance. There are more than a quarter of a million other kids aiming for the same eight colleges at the same time， and less than 9% of them will make the cut And those hours you spend coaching Little League because you just know your sons sweet swing will take him to the professionals. There are 2. 4 million other Little Leaguers out there， and there are exactly 750 openings for major league ballplayers at the beginning of each season. That gives him a 0.0313% chance of reaching the big clubs. The odds are just as long for the other dreams you've had for your kids： your child the billionaire， the Broadway star， the Rhodes scholar. Most of those things are never going to happen

       The kids are paying the price for parents' delusions. In public schools， some students are bringing home 17.5 hours of homework per week or 3.5 per school night and it's hard to see how they have time to do it. From 2004 to 2014， the number of children participating in up to three hours of after-school activities on any given day rose from 6.5 million to 10.2 million. And all the while，the kids are being fed a promise-that they can be tutored and coached， pushed and tested， hot housed and advance placed until success is assured

       At last， a growing chorus of educators and psychologists is saying， “Enough！”Somewhere between the self-esteem building of going for the gold and the self esteem crushing of the Ivy-or-die ethos there has to be a place where kids can breathe， where they can have the freedom to do what they love and where parents accustomed to pushing their children to excel can shake off the newly defined shame of having raised an ordinary child.

       If the system is going to be fixed， it has to start， no surprise， with the parents. For them，the problem isn't merely the expense of the tutors， the chore of the homework checking and the constant search for just the right summer program. It's also the sweat equity that comes from agonizing over every exam， grieving over every disappointing grade-becoming less a guide in a child's academic career than an intimate fellow traveler.

       The first step for parents is accepting that they have less control over their children's education than they think they do a reality that can be both sobering and liberating. You can sign your kids up for ballet camp or violin immersion all you want， but if they're simply doing what they're told instead of doing what they love， they'll take it only so far.

       Ultimately， there's a much larger national conversation that needs to be had about just what higher education means and when it's needed at all. Four years of college has been sold as being a golden ticket in the American economy， and to an extent that's true.

       But pushing all kids down the bachelor's path ensures not only that some of them will lose their way but also that critical jobs that require a two-year or less-skilled trades， some kinds of nursing，computer technology， airline mechanics and more-will go unfilled

       There will never be a case to be made for a culture of academic complacency or the demolition of the meritocracy. It can be fulfilling for kids to chase a ribbon， as long as it's a ribbon the child really wants. And the very act of making that effort can bring out the best in anyone's work.

       But we cheat ourselves， and worse， we cheat our kids， if we view life as a single straight-line race in which one one-hundredth of the competitors finish in the money and everyone else loses.We will all be better off if we recognize that there are a great many races of varying lengths and outcomes. The challenge for parents is to help their children find the one that's right for them.