If you haven’t participated in a One Book, One _____ [insert your city/town/school name] event yet, you’ve probably heard of the movement.  Usually its a city or organization that chooses one book that everyone reads.  The idea is to draw people together through a common reading experience.

In my neck of the woods the Chicago Public Library system runs the program.  They select two books a year, one in the spring and one in the fall, and there’s a month-long focus on the book and its subject matter that includes not only discussion groups, but talks by scholars, panels, and sometimes performance pieces or movies.  The discussion groups are hosted at various libraries and bookstores throughout the city limits.

And now Twitter is getting into the mix.  Twitter users recently voted to read American Gods by Neil Gaiman for Twitter’s first One Book, One Twitter event.

The Guardian posted chapter one of the novel today and you can read it here.

I’ve been meaning to read Neil Gaiman for years now.  Some of my friends look at me oddly–as if they’re re-evaluating my worthiness as friend material–when I say I haven’t read anything by him yet, so I’m taking the One Book, One Twitter event as a sign that its time for me to dive into the world of Neil Gaiman.

Visit here for more info, which is where I found this reading schedule:

If you’d like to connect with me on Twitter you can find me here.