Sunday, 4 January 2015

Is Mark Zuckerberg the next Oprah? Facebook CEO starts book club and the first selection is already sold out on Amazon

Mark Zuckerberg is attempting to add a little more 'book' to Facebook.

The Facebook founder and CEO announced on his page recently that he has vowed to read a book every other week in 2015, with an emphasis on learning about different beliefs and cultures.

Zuckerberg created a 'Year of Book Books' page and urged his friends to join him in the project. As of Sunday afternoon, it had more than 89,000 likes.




The first book in his program, Moises Naim's 'The End of Power,' was out of stock Sunday on Amazon.com and had a sales ranking of No. 203.

The book was first published in 2013 and according to its description on Amazon, it 'illuminates the struggle between once-dominant megaplayers and the new micropowers challenging them in every field of human endeavor.'

Oprah Winfrey remains the gold standard for choosing books, though clubs have been started by 'Good Morning America' and the 'Today' show, among others.






Lucky author: Amazon quickly sold out of Moises Naim's book The End of Power after Zuckerberg's announcement

ZUCKERBERG'S FACEBOOK INVITATION: WILL YOU JOIN HIS BOOK CLUB?




My challenge for 2015 is to read a new book every other week -- with an emphasis on learning about different cultures, beliefs, histories and technologies.

Thank you to all 50,000 of you in our community who gave me suggestions for different challenges.

Many of you proposed reading challenges. Cynthia Greco suggested I read one book a month that another person chooses -- and got 1,900 likes on her suggestion. Rachel Brown, Bill Munns, Marlo Kanipe and others suggested I read the Bible. My friend and colleague Amin Zoufonoun suggested I read and learn everything I can about a new country each week.

I'm excited for my reading challenge. I've found reading books very intellectually fulfilling. Books allow you to fully explore a topic and immerse yourself in a deeper way than most media today. I'm looking forward to shifting more of my media diet towards reading books.

I'm looking forward to shifting more of my media diet towards reading books

If you want to follow along on my challenge and read the same books I do, I've created a page, A Year of Books, where I'll post what I'm reading. Please only participate in the discussions if you've actually read the books and have relevant points to add. The group will be moderated to keep it focused.

Our first book of the year will be The End of Power by Moisés Naím. It's a book that explores how the world is shifting to give individual people more power that was traditionally only held by large governments, militaries and other organizations. The trend towards giving people more power is one I believe in deeply, and I'm looking forward to reading this book and exploring this in more detail.

I appreciated all of your other suggestions for possible challenges as well. Many of you suggested I give money to help people in need -- and Priscilla and I fully intend to keep doing that through our philanthropic work. We'll have more to discuss there soon. Some of you suggested that I meet a new person every day. That was actually my challenge in 2013. Others suggested I teach a class. I've done that too, and I'd love to do it again and get more involved in education in the coming year.

Thanks again for all of your suggestions, and I'm looking forward to a year of books!

via Daily mail



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