For The L♥ve of Reading: About Us

Our love of the written word has united the five of us together and created for us a unique goal. That goal is to share our love of books, authors and everything thus associated with the rest world. Okay, maybe it's not as unique as we would like to think considering there are millions of authors and good citizens who would love nothing more than to bring literacy to all nations, but that does not diminish our feelings on the matter. Illiteracy is a huge growing problem in the world today, even in the United States.

The little group began as no more than a woman preparing for a literature class and her attempt to fight illiteracy (and to achieve an "A"). She was to amass a group of people from all around the globe who could discuss, dissect and divulge their feelings for books of many different genres and many different authors. The differing opinions associated with such a topic, as you can imagine, were great, but that was what made it all that much better. To be able to discus thoughts, feelings and a general love of something that interested so many people was such a joy that those differing opinions were at times wonderful. I do believe a member of the group said it best when she said, "If we all liked the same thing, life would be very boring!" Isn't it so true!

Well, it must be somewhat true, because that little one person group grew to contain more than 500 members. Now the literature class has ended, but the group continues on with members joining regularly. This would be what pressed us to expand past the walls of our Goodreads.com book group. We wanted to share everything we have learned and everything we love about our books and now our group with everyone. Our hope is to expand the group to different nations all over the world (right now we have members in the US and parts of Europe). We hope to stand against the illiteracy that is so prominent all over the world by bringing a love of reading and a place to discuss that love to all.

---Jen, Lyss, Z, Kate, Paperdoll & Ginny

Facts on Illiteracy

There are approximately one billion nonliterate adults (persons 15 years old and above) in the world today.
Ninety-eight percent of all nonliterates are in developing nations.
Two-thirds of all nonliterates are women.
One-half of all nonliterates are in India and China.
It is estimated that 30-50 million people are added each year to the numbers of nonliterates.
Twenty-seven percent of all adults are nonliterate.
Africa, as a continent, has a literacy rate of less than 50 percent.
Worldwide, the percentage of adult illiteracy is declining, but the absolute number of nonliterates is increasing.
In the poorer nations, population growth is believed to be a primary source of growth in the number of nonliterates.