"The present publication is an attempt to report on various practical methods adopted throughout the world to promote and develop the reading habit among those literate populations that read little or nothing at all. The countries surveyed represent the major geographic regions of the world and illustrate a broad variety of internal structures. For example, leading publishing giants are looked at as well as countries where indigenous publishing is in its earliest stages; highly literate societies are considered as are those which have recently embarked on the path to literacy; monolingual countries and multilingual cultures are both represented here. Yet despite these disparities one common thread emerges: no country is satisfied with the number of active readers it counts among its population and all consider that methods and techniques for increasing reading must be tried and tried again in order to bring books and people together in a lasting aqd fruitful relationship." (Preface)