Mark Zuckerberg’s book club opens with a disappointing first chapter

What could possibly go wrong with a book club boasting 250,000 members? First they have to show up

The first meeting of Mark Zuckerberg’s much-trumpeted online book club had quite a wind behind it. The Facebook founder’s realisation that books could be “very intellectually fulfilling … in a deeper way than most media today”, caused a wave of excitement as he announced plans to read a book a fortnight, encouraging us all to read along with his selections.

His invitation to his 31 million followers on Facebook duly prompted huge demand for his first choice, Moisés Naím’s The End of Power, seeing it zoom up Amazon’s charts and sell out double quick. The New York Post hurrahed: “Move Over Oprah”, and it even made an impression in these more cautious quarters. Wired magazine was a little more circumspect, suggesting he might have a way to go before commanding the full “Oprah effect” and automatically turning any book he recommends into a massive bestseller. “Zuckerberg still has a long way to go, but with more than 31 million followers at his fingertips, the young CEO has a decent shot at filling her shoes.”

Among the 137 ‘questions’ that followed: several requests for a pirated PDF of the book, a conspiracy theory involving Saudi social media and the price of oil and a photo of a Maltese wearing a frilly dress, along with many more on-topic, but still fairly stupid, questions.

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