Mark Zuckerberg book club

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Mark Zuckerberg book club (aka A Year of Books) was an online book club hosted by Mark Zuckerberg through his personal Facebook account started in January 2015. [1] Zuckerberg made a book recommendation every two weeks for a year to his millions of Facebook followers. [2] [3]

Contents

Zuckerberg came up with the idea as part of his New Year's Resolution for 2015 after Cynthia Greco, the Audience Development Manager for MediaOnePA/York Newspaper Company, suggested that Zuckerberg read a new book every month. [4] Zuckerberg modified the idea to one book every two weeks and books which "emphasize learning about new cultures, beliefs, histories and technologies." [1]

Book club selections

#DateAuthorTitleCitation
1January 2, 2015 Moisés Naím The End of Power: From Boardrooms to Battlefields and Churches to States, Why Being In Charge Isn’t What It Used to Be [5]
2January 18, 2015 Steven Pinker The Better Angels of Our Nature: Why Violence Has Declined [5]
3February 2, 2015 Sudhir Venkatesh Gang Leader for a Day: A Rogue Sociologist Takes to the Streets [2]
4February 18, 2015 Eula Biss On Immunity: An Inoculation [6]
5March 3, 2015 Ed Catmull Creativity, Inc.: Overcoming the Unseen Forces That Stand in the Way of True Inspiration [7]
6March 17, 2015 Thomas Kuhn The Structure of Scientific Revolutions [8] [9]
7March 31, 2015 Michael Chwe Rational Ritual: Culture, Coordination, and Common Knowledge [10] [11]
8April 15, 2015 Hank Paulson Dealing With China: An Insider Unmasks the New Economic Superpower [12]
9April 28, 2015 Peter W. Huber Orwell's Revenge: The 1984 Palimpsest [13]
10May 14, 2015 Michelle Alexander The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness [14]
11June 1, 2015 Ibn Khaldun Muqaddimah [15]
12June 15, 2015 Yuval Harari Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind [16]
13June 29, 2015 Iain Banks The Player of Games [17]
14July 14, 2015 Vaclav Smil Energy: A Beginner's Guide [18]
15July 28, 2015 Matt Ridley Genome: The Autobiography of a Species in 23 Chapters [19]
16August 12, 2015 William James The Varieties of Religious Experience: A Study in Human Nature [20]
17September 1, 2015 Daryl Collins, Jonathan Morduch, Stuart Rutherford Portfolios of the Poor: How the World's Poor Live on $2 a Day [21]
18September 16, 2015 Daron Acemoğlu, James A. Robinson Why Nations Fail: The Origins of Power, Prosperity, and Poverty [22]
19September 29, 2015 Matt Ridley The Rational Optimist: How Prosperity Evolves [23]
20October 21, 2015 Liu Cixin The Three-Body Problem [24]
21November 9, 2015 Jon Gertner The Idea Factory: Bell Labs and the Great Age of American Innovation [25]
22December 10, 2015 Henry Kissinger World Order [26]
23December 28, 2015 David Deutsch The Beginning of Infinity: Explanations that Transform the World [27]

Reception

The Atlantic wrote that it "has the potential to be Oprahesque in its influence on book sales", in reference to the Oprah Book Club after the first selection by Moisés Naím caused Amazon's stock to sell out. [28] An article in The New Yorker made a similar comparison to Oprah. [29] The Associated Press noted that the second selection by Steven Pinker did not result in any increase in sales according to Nielsen BookScan data. [2]

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References

  1. 1 2 Amit Chowdhry (January 5, 2015). "Mark Zuckerberg Starts A Book Club As His New Year's Resolution". Forbes. Retrieved February 2, 2015.
  2. 1 2 3 "Mark Zuckerberg makes 3rd book club pick". Denver Post . Associated Press. February 2, 2015. Archived from the original on February 3, 2015. Retrieved February 2, 2015.
  3. ↑ Feloni, Richard (February 5, 2018). "Twenty-three books Mark Zuckerberg thinks everyone should read". The Independent . Retrieved July 21, 2023.
  4. ↑ Zuckerberg, Mark (January 2, 2015). "My challenge for 2015 is to read a new book..." Facebook. Archived from the original on 2015-08-23.
  5. 1 2 Rhiannon Williams (1 February 2015). "Mark Zuckerberg's Year of Books: the full list". The Daily Telegraph. Retrieved February 2, 2015.
  6. ↑ Claire Armitstead (February 19, 2015). "Mark Zuckerberg's book club fights US fear of vaccination". The Guardian . Retrieved February 19, 2015.
  7. ↑ Richard Feloni (March 3, 2015). "Why Mark Zuckerberg thinks everyone can learn something from Pixar". Business Insider . Retrieved April 19, 2015.
  8. ↑ Alison Flood (March 19, 2015). "Mark Zuckerberg book club tackles the philosophy of science". The Guardian . Retrieved April 19, 2015.
  9. ↑ Richard Feloni (March 17, 2015). "Why Mark Zuckerberg wants everyone to read this landmark philosophy book from the 1960s". Business Insider . Retrieved April 19, 2015.
  10. ↑ Michael Chwe (April 8, 2015). "Mark Zuckerberg wants people to understand common knowledge. What's common knowledge?". Washington Post . Retrieved April 19, 2015.
  11. ↑ Richard Feloni (April 1, 2015). "Mark Zuckerberg hopes this book will help shape his vision for Facebook". Business Insider . Retrieved April 19, 2015.
  12. ↑ Richard Feloni (April 16, 2015). "Why Mark Zuckerberg is reading Hank Paulson's new book about China". Business Insider . Retrieved April 19, 2015.
  13. ↑ Richard Feloni (April 29, 2015). "Why Mark Zuckerberg is reading 'Orwell's Revenge,' an unofficial sequel to '1984'". Business Insider . Retrieved April 29, 2015.
  14. ↑ Richard Feloni (May 14, 2015). "Why Mark Zuckerberg wants everyone to read 'The New Jim Crow'". Business Insider . Retrieved June 20, 2015.
  15. ↑ Richard Feloni (June 2, 2015). "Why Mark Zuckerberg wants everyone to read the 14th-century Islamic book 'The Muqaddimah'". Business Insider . Retrieved June 20, 2015.
  16. ↑ Richard Feloni (June 16, 2015). "Why Mark Zuckerberg wants everyone to read an Israeli historian's book about the human race". Business Insider . Retrieved June 20, 2015.
  17. ↑ Alix Jean-Pharuns (July 10, 2015). "Why Are Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg Reading Utopian Sci-Fi?". Vice . Retrieved August 12, 2015.
  18. ↑ Shana Lebowitz (July 16, 2015). "Mark Zuckerberg wants everyone to read a book by Bill Gates' favorite author". Business Insider . Retrieved August 12, 2015.
  19. ↑ Richard Feloni (July 28, 2015). "Why Mark Zuckerberg wants everyone to read this book about the evolution of man". Business Insider . Retrieved August 12, 2015.
  20. ↑ Richard Feloni (August 12, 2015). "Why Mark Zuckerberg wants everyone to read this book about religion". Business Insider . Retrieved August 12, 2015.
  21. ↑ Richard Feloni (September 1, 2015). "Why Mark Zuckerberg wants everyone to read about how the poor spend their money". Business Insider . Retrieved September 17, 2015.
  22. ↑ Richard Feloni (September 15, 2015). "Why Mark Zuckerberg wants everyone to read about the origins of global poverty". Business Insider . Retrieved September 17, 2015.
  23. ↑ Richard Feloni (September 29, 2015). "Why Mark Zuckerberg wants everyone to read this book about 'idea sex'". Business Insider . Retrieved October 23, 2015.
  24. ↑ Richard Feloni (October 21, 2015). "Why Mark Zuckerberg wants everyone to read this book that caused a sensation in China". Business Insider . Retrieved October 23, 2015.
  25. ↑ Richard Feloni (November 9, 2015). "Why Mark Zuckerberg wants everyone to read about the lab that has won the most Nobel Prizes". Business Insider . Retrieved November 10, 2015.
  26. ↑ Richard Feloni (December 10, 2015). "Why Mark Zuckerberg wants everyone to read Henry Kissinger's book about world order". Business Insider . Retrieved December 10, 2015.
  27. ↑ Richard Feloni (December 28, 2015). "Why Mark Zuckerberg wants everyone to read a book that claims human potential is infinite". Business Insider . Retrieved December 28, 2015.
  28. ↑ Adrienne LaFrance (January 5, 2015). "Mark Zuckerberg's Book Club Could Be (Much) Bigger Than It Looks". The Atlantic. Retrieved February 2, 2015.
  29. ↑ Lizzie Widdicombe (January 19, 2015). "The Zuckerberg Bump". The New Yorker. Retrieved February 2, 2015.
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