Reading Creating Room to Read is akin having a conversation with John Wood himself. He could be a fellow traveller in the waiting room of an airport or a railway station, or drinking a cup of coffee on the next table in a café, a regular person doing inspirational work in the most ordinary of places. He makes one wonder, what if I also took a leap of faith? What if I also left everything I know to work towards a cause and dedicate my life to it? Creating Room to Read narrates one such story — a story of a man who left everything he knew for one goal: global literacy.

Wood’s journey started with a hiking trip in Nepal when he realised that the country, and others like it, was trapped in a Catch-22 situation — its people were too poor to afford good quality education, but until they had access to it, they would remain poor. A tour of schools in Nepal during the expedition revealed one basic problem — a lack of adequately-equipped libraries. Wood’s trip ended with a statement that would resonate with him always: “perhaps, sir, you will someday come back with books,” said the headmaster of one of the schools Wood visited. Jack Wood came back with books, and much more. And thus started the inspirational story of a former corporate executive’s mission to construct libraries around the world until each child everywhere is educated.

Creating Room to Read is a sequel to Wood’s first book, Leaving Microsoft to Change the World. Since then, Wood and Room to Read, the organisation he set up, have come a long way. In Creating Room to Read, Wood recounts the decade-long journey since leaving Microsoft and the setup of a small organisation which has sent hundreds and thousands of books to fill the shelves of school libraries.What was once a small organisation has grown to a massive scale in this period — a success Wood had not envisioned but his mentors and colleagues saw him capable of.

The book begins with the 10th anniversary of Room to Read, which was celebrated with the opening of their ten thousandth library — amid tears and cheers — with several more projects under way in different parts of the world. This initiative now has offices in India, Bangladesh, Nepal, Sri Lanka, Cambodia and Vietnam amongst other developing as well as developed countries around the world. It has successfully established 15,320 libraries, constructed 1,681 schools and distributed over 13 million books. In all, over 7.8 million children have already benefitted from this endeavour.

The book documents not just the achievements Room to Read has celebrated but also the route and the processes that were developed to achieve those goals. Wood focuses on the problems and details how the main philosophy of the organisation propelled it towards the goals. “GSD” or “Get Shit Done” is the philosophy; rather than talk about something, just get up and be proactive. Wood identifies three main factors for the initiative’s success: firstly, the involvement of the local community; secondly, the sharing of costs by the community to ensure a sense of ownership of the project; and lastly, surrounding oneself with people who have passion for the cause.

But the most important part of the story is Wood’s approach — that anyone with passion and dedication can achieve any goal. His story encourages readers to step out of their comfort zone and connect with people, to understand what they need and work with them to achieve a common goal which benefits individuals and entire communities, and later the world, on a larger scale.

Startups could also benefit greatly by the various strategies and practices Wood shares in Creating Room to Read. He also provides guidance for personal development as he discusses the obstacles and challenges he encountered during this journey and the methods he employed to overcome them.

Wood adopts a very simple mathematical approach to the global literacy issue. For example, his principle of not purchasing Land Rovers is justified through reducing the decision to simple math: “seventy-five thousand dollars spent on a Land Rover means you can’t put 300 girls on scholarship for a year. That is over 60,000 days a young girl does not go to school. Seventy-five thousand dollars means you can’t print 75,000 copies of a local-language children’s book. It means you can’t set up 15 bilingual libraries in rural parts of Asia serving 7,000 children. And that’s if you just buy one of them! But Land Rovers are like potato chips — nobody stops at just one!” This kind of approach allows one to sift through that which is necessary from that which is not and teaches one the importance of priority — identifying that which deserves attention and that which just obstructs one’s vision of the goal.

Creating Room to Read includes personalised accounts of children from different parts of the world who were assisted by the organisation. The story at times becomes repetitive and certain instances or quotes figure too often. But this doesn’t take away from the fact that the book narrates the story of a journey which hinges on the unreal, and the positive GSD outlook instills a sense of hope in the reader. All who read the book will look at the world through a new lens and wonder about their contribution to the global narrative.

“If we dare to dream big and execute flawlessly, we have the ability to influence the choices and opportunities these children have,” Wood writes. “Or we can just decide it’s someone else’s problem and let the status quo perpetuate itself.” John Wood and the team at Room to Read thankfully dream big.

Creating Room to Read: A Story of Hope in the Battle for Global Literacy(Education)By John WoodViking Adult, USISBN 0670025984320pp.