Reading American Gods with thousands of my friends

As I was checking out @donttrythis‘s Twitter time line (yes, we are huge fan’s here), I found a link to a gem.

It’s called 1 Book, 1 Twitter and as of May 5, the group is reading American Gods by Neil Gaiman. I think it’s fair to say this group reading project might be the largest book reading club ever. A fellow reader put together this map of those who indicated they are reading along, so you be the judge.

I’ve never anything by Gaiman before, and am now currently somewhere in Chapter 4 of the book. I will not be using this novel as a read-aloud to the kiddos (that’s my nice way of saying this novel has it’s naughty bits, be forewarned, Gentle Reader.) But I’m going to ignore the s*x, looking for the undercurrent of gods and God. I’ve already found a reference to Jesus in one of the god-characters – interesting is all I can say without spoiling the book.

Now. If only I could magically transport all the 1 Book, 1 Twitter participants into my living room for coffee and pasty and book chat, this would get only better. O, the joys of Twitter!

So if you see me with a #1b1t next to my tweet, you know what I’m talking about.

Join us? Follow @1b1t2010 on Twitter, use the hashtag for discussion.

Are paper books dead?

I do. I don’t know how long it will take. You know, we love stories and we love narrative; we love to get lost in an author’s  world. That’s not going to go away; that’s going to thrive. But the physical book really has had a 500-year run. . . But no technology, not even one as elegant as the book, lasts forever.

That’s Amazon.com’s Jeff Bezos, mastermind behind that eReader gadget known as Kindle answering the question posed by Newsweek magazine: Do you think that the ink-on-paper book will eventually go away?

Now I ask you -

jeff-bezos-with-kindle

Will the traditional paper book cease to exist?

Is technology that powerful?

Are we so addicted to our electronics that the eBook will send the paper book into extinction?

And do we care?

image: scrapetv.com

I won! I won! Ok, I’m calm now

I won!

screen shot of 5 Minutes for Books blog

O, happy day! A Sony Pocket Reader! I’ve been fantasizing of how awesome a Kindle would be, but at the price tag of almost $300, it’s a not happening right now. I had to read the post at 5 Minutes for Books twice to make sure I wasn’t dreaming – I was that shocked and excited. A Sony Pocket Reader! I can’t wait to try it out. Woohoo!

Have you won anything lately from a blog, Twitter or other another place in the online world? Let’s jump up and down together.