One Book, One Twitter: The Power of the Crowd
Love books? Love reading? Of course you do. But like many things, reading a good book gets even better when you can discuss what you’re reading with others who not only know what you’re talking about, but are reading it too. That’s why Crowdsourcing has planned this huge, Twitter-wide group read of Neil Gaiman’s American Gods over the next eight weeks. Essentially, it’s like a book club except without the physical meet-ups or geographical limitations: the first world-wide read!
I love books. So do you. Let’s love one book together, our actual geographical location be damned…
The aim with One Book, One Twitter is — like the one city, one book program which inspired it — is to get a zillion people all reading and talking about a single book. It is not, for instance, an attempt to gather a more selective crew of book lovers to read a series of books and meet at established times to discuss. The point of this (to the extent it has a point beyond good fun with a good book) is to create community across geographical, cultural, ethnic, economic and social boundaries.
Sounds like fun to me! I’ll be posting regular updates every few chapters, letting you guys know where I’m up to and what I think of the book so far. There will be spoilers, so if you haven’t read it you might want to get a copy (or just skip the posts…but that would make me sad)!
Remember, the more the merrier. If you and your friends want to join in, here are some links to get you started:
What if Everyone on Twitter Read One Book? The idea behind the event.
One Book, One Twitter Launch article from the guardian.co.uk.
Ready, Set, Read! The 1B1T reading and discussion schedule 2010.
American Gods: About the Book.
Only the Gods are Real – a fansite and encyclopedia-type reference guide to the novel.
You can also follow @Crowdsourcing and @neilhimself on Twitter, keep up with @1B1T2010 and search for the hashtag #1B1T to find international discussions.
I’ll look forward to enjoying this book with you. Feel free to post a link to your blog below or comment if you’re going to read along. Happy reading!
The Black Sheep 