Jeff Howes (@crowdsourcing) asks: What if everyone on Twitter read the same book at the same time and we formed one massive, international book club?
Usually such programs are organized by big-city libraries. Seattle started the trend for collective reading in 1998 when zillions of Seattlites all read Russell Banks’ book, Sweet Hereafter. Chicago followed suit with To Kill a Mockingbird a few years later, and then other cities started jumping on the bandwagon.
When the program works it gets more people reading, more people talking and more people generally appreciating the written word. What’s not to like?
I was reading about the Chicago’s read-along… The thought struck me that Twitter would provide a much better platform for a book club than the mere accident of physical proximity.
This is not a book club, per se. There are some wonderful book clubs on Twitter, including #thebookclub and the Twitter Book Club (#tbc). 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 is to create community across geographical, cultural, ethnic, economic and social boundaries.
To participate, follow the conversation on Twitter at #1b1t and submit your choice of book on The Wired website.
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