Books? Really!

This blog, as with most group blogs, started with a long conversation between friends - in this case, two bloggers who have known each other since high school, back when the Internet was nothing more than a twinkle in Al Gore's eye. Oh, sure, the bloggers in question were already dabbling in beauty and fashion (not to mention forays into Filipino-language snark and blissful affirmations for the American Midwest, respectively), and they were already dumping out some of their more personal stuff on Facebook... but we digress.

So why books, and why now? Well, let's face it:

1) We were both burning out on our regular blog-reading diets, which usually consists of bitchy gossip sites and otherwise well-written blogs littered with semi-illiterate posts. And really, there's so much drama that a person can take.

2) Everything in our lives had become more conducive to book-reading: our respective job situations, our declining interest in what's on television, even the weather (and yes, even a place like Honolulu can have depressing rainy days) - so instead of just sitting in our apartments IM-ing about the books we've borrowed from the library, why not let everyone else in on the conversation?

3) We're not after trenchant literary criticism or hipster posing here, even if one of us is an English major and the other is a freelance journalist. We read what we read, we like what we like, and we can't help but write about it all; it's just that simple.

Some of you may take this third point as a way of saying that this blog is non-commercial, and in a way it is. We've both decided to treat this blog as a work of love, as opposed to work work; otherwise we're just chasing deadlines like we do at our real life jobs, and it stops being fun for us. So forgive us, dear reader, if we don't post too regularly, or if we don't get to read anything that you feel that we have to review right away.

And finally: We call this blog No Book Left Behind because that's how we read: there's no book that's too trashy or low-brow for us to tackle. It's not our job to be picky or snobby about what you read, especially when we're just as indiscriminate about our book choices as everyone else. Let's keep this a safe and fun place for us to read about reading. Let's help bring literacy back into vogue again. Let's help make this world a better place by being well-informed readers ourselves.