March 2015

NYPL to Facebook: Read Enrique’s Journey

Mark Zuckerberg, cofounder and CEO of Facebook, has launched an online book club. And New York City’s public librarians say Enrique’s Journey should be one of the books tackled this year.

Do you agree? Let Zuckerberg know.

Zuckerberg’s reading club will “emphasize learning about new cultures, beliefs, histories and technologies.” He has encouraged people to read the books with him and post comments.

In a blog posted Feb. 3, Lynn Lobash, manager of reader services at New York Public Library, explained how Zuckerberg has asked for book suggestions. “The inevitable comparisons to Oprah have been made, and feelings and opinions about either celebrity or their enterprise aside, it is pretty powerful to be able to select a book for hundreds of thousands of people to read together,” she wrote.

Then she revealed the books nominated by NYPL librarians.

Lois Moore, a librarian in Mid-Manhattan, suggested Enrique’s Journey. “It made me look at the immigration dilemma with fresh eyes. Nazario won a Pulitzer in 2003 for her original series of articles in the Los Angeles Times. Yes, I cried.”

Other books recommended by NYPL were: Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury; Pale Fire by Vladimir Nabokov; Feed by MT Anderson; Predictably Irrational by Dan Ariely; What We Have Done: An Oral History of the Disability Rights Movement by Fred Pelka; An Anthropologist on Mars by Oliver Sacks; Who Owns the Future by Jaron Lanier; The Internet is Not the Answer by Andrew Keen; Hand to Mouth: Living in Bootstrap America by Linda Tirado; Zen Flesh, Zen Bones compiled by Paul Rep; Nightfall and Other Stories by Isaac Asimov; White Tiger by Aravind Adiga; The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down: A Hmong Child, Her Western Doctors and the Collision of Two Cultures by Anne Fadiman; Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting By In America by Barbara Ehrenreich; Four Spare Parts: Four Undocumented Teenagers, One Ugly Robot, and the Battle for the American Dream by Joshua Davis; Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides; The Crusades Through Arab Eyes Amin Maalouf; The Fangirl’s Guide to the Galaxy by Sam Maggs; If I Fall, If I Die by Michael Christie; The Unlikely Disciple: A Sinner’s Semester at America’s Holiest University by Kevin Roose; and Bruchko by Bruce Olsen.