One Book, One Twitter

Want to be part of a REALLY big book club? Read this interview with Twitter's founder...

From SLJ's Extra Helping 5/10/10:

Q: Did you see One Book, One Twitter as a book club or social experiment?
A: It’s not that it’s not a book club, it is. It’s a virtual book club. I was inspired by The Big Read, which is now an NEA program, and one program called One Book, One Chicago. Those are not so much about increasing literacy, but about social capital, about bonding and increasing different communities within a city. I read that we imagine we’re so hindered by geography, but we’re not. I thought, why do this by city? Let’s do this over Twitter. I was on Twitter a lot, and it seemed like a perfect vehicle for me. It was also a great social media experiment. Can we make these connections around the world? I want to increase mutual understanding.

Q: What’s been your favorite moment so far?
A: I was in Florida to give a talk and woke up early, and logged on to Twitter. I log on every couple of hours. Someone mentioned a line I had posted from the book “..language is a violence..”, and said that was the title of a Laurie Anderson song. And then someone else said that Anderson had actually borrowed it from William Burroughs. I thought this is amazing. There’s a wisdom of the crowd thing going on here.

Q: Some people have tweeted about the problem of spoilers — those reading ahead of the crowd, and posting their thoughts. Do you see it as a big issue?
A: People have used the hashtags I devised and moved on, creating their own hashtag systems. They’re obeying the rules, they don’t want to inflict spoilers on everyone. There’s a general spirit of humanity. I generally believe people are good.

Q: What’s been the biggest surprise?
A: Just how international it quickly became. We’ve got tons of Scandinavians. American Gods has a lot of Norse mythology. And Scandinavia is a place where people read in English a lot of the time. So none of that is surprising. But it’s very international, with people participating in the Middle East, Kuala Lumpur. It’s skewing in ways that are sort of predictable. I’m not seeing as much foreign language as I thought I would. The big victory is it's very clearly international.

Q: Will you move on to another book when this one’s done?
A: To some extent it’s up to the community. This took weeks of voting. I suspect people will follow my lead, and if I was going to say let’s wait until next summer… I can’t do this year round I’m too busy. These big reads are generally summer programs. We’ll see if people really want to do it again. There’s a possibility we’ll try to set it up as something permanent, get nonprofit status. I have a domain and haven’t started a website, but could start it as a foundation.

Q: Was your favorite book picked?
A: My favorite book is the one the crowd picked. I think it’s so incredible they came together and chose something so peacefully.

Q: So you’ve been pleased with the experience so far?I love these people, they’re so awesome. A: It’s all book people. They’re so nice. Even when they’re criticizing me, they’re so polite about it. Even when they come on my blog and tell me what a dunderhead I am. They’re so polite about it. I have really tried to include that spirit.