Neil Gaiman's American Gods chosen by Twitter book club
5th May 2010
Twitter users have nominated Neil Gaiman's American Gods as their first worldwide book club choice.
The award-winning author was up against a shortlist of 20th century literary giants including Ray Bradbury, George Orwell and Kurt Vonnegut, but was tipped to be selected as a result of his huge following on the micro-blogging website.
One Book, One Twitter was launched today and the book club's founder Jeff Howe, editor of Wired, says he expects the scheme to get a 'zillion people' reading and tweeting about modern fiction.
Despite the boost in sales Gaiman is expected to receive as a result of being nominated as the first One Book, One Twitter author, the writer is wary of users' choice.
He said: 'It's not a book I'd hand out to everyone, because the people who don't know anything about what I've written and who hate it - who might have loved Stardust, or Neverwhere, or The Graveyard Book or Sandman - probably won't go and look any further.'
Last week, Gaiman used Twitter to confirm he had finished writing a script for the next series of Doctor Who.