““Also, there is a dedicated community of people in the world who will always be able to connect with each other across all languages, boundaries, and religions. It is the “Readers’ Club.” People who read a lot, starting at a very young age, are people who were raised by books. They have learned about forms of love and hate, kindness, respect, and ideas that are different from their own. They experience the world as something infinitely larger than before. They enjoy the indescribable feeling of having found their true selves. We readers are book people, and Jean Perdu [the protagonist] is one of us. We are all traveling on an invisible literary riverboat, one that carries us down the stream of life. It shapes, holds, and comforts us. At””
![“That, incidentally, gives me the greatest possible pleasure—the knowledge that we are all linked by our friendship with a group of fictional people. What a pleasant club of which to be a member! [from the preface; on writing for people around the world]” quote by Alexander McCall Smith](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/img-quotes/9bf/alexander-mccall-smith-372_around-the-world_that-incidentally-gives-me-the-greatest_2630833.jpg)
