Updated offering from my book declutter

Latest update of books in my I own bookshelf. Each of the 40 books is available for $5 each (paid via PayPal) plus $5.70 postage (Australia only).

Direct message @booktagger on Twitter or email rlebard AT gmail DOT com.

The Accidental Billionaires

The Accidental Billionaire is a recreation of the founding of Facebook.com based on a reconstruction of eyewitness accounts. It is an easy read, which paints a picture of founder Mark Zuckerberg's humble beginings at Harvard. Humble because on the social scale at the campus he is portrayed as someone disadvantaged, yet driven to be connected. Mark hacked his way to popularity. Initially, with a social experiment at Harvard for tracking people in Harvard classes and later to viral notoriety, achieved by hacking into every dorms' database of student pictures and letting his friends rate students in a Hot or Not style site.

The book recounts how Zuckerberg attracted the attention of Microsoft, being offered $1M to work for them when he was in high school and, as we know, Microsoft was an investor in Facebook.

It's apparent from the start that many of the people surrounding Mark in the book recognised talent in him and wanted to ride his coat tails or get him to work for them. All this when what he really wanted to do was create a site where he could find a date amidst his busy class schedule. This story really presents Mark Zuckerberg as an underdog that becomes the world's youngest billionaire through luck, hardwork and partying. The story behind Facebook's enormous growth in 6 years to the worlds second largest web destination with 400 million users is worth reading. Especially if you use Facebook.

The author Ben Mezrich is known for his previous book Bringing Down the House which was turned into the Kevin Spacey directed movie 21 (IMDB).

An awesome new online bookshop www.treeet.com.au sent us a copy of the book to review. Check out their site, they're super speedy with their delivery and have excellent discounts.

Twenty more

More books are on sale as I clear out my shelves (see yesterday's post to see how to buy them for $5 each plus postage. More on each of the 40 books can be seen by visiting my I own bookshelf.

On Monday I will start listing more, but also start listing some of these elsewhere.

$5 books

I have added twenty books to my I own bookshelf that are for sale. Each book is $5 each plus postage. All in very good to excellent condition.Payment is by PayPal only and postage is via a standard Australia postage satchel costing $5.70 (I will combine items where possible, up to 3 kg, and charge $9.90). Just email the title/s of the book/s you want to purchase to rlebard AT gmail DOT com and I will send you an invoice if you are the first to request a book (I will remove items from my I own bookshelf as they are requested).

Australia only at the moment, but keep checking, I might change my mind.

Twenty more books will be added tomorrow!

Happy World Book Day (to part of it, anyway)

While it is Friday here in Australia, it is Thursday in the United Kingdom and Ireland, where they are celebrating World Book Day. Despite the name, the celebration is geographically limited, with the rest of the world celebrating the event on April 23, which was chosen as it is "a symbolic date for world literature for on this date and in the same year of 1616, Cervantes, Shakespeare and Inca Garcilaso de la Vega all died. It is also the date of birth or death of other prominent authors such as Maurice Druon, K.Laxness, Vladimir Nabokov, Josep Pla and Manuel Mejía Vallejo" - UNESCO.

The event in the UK aims to have 1 million children read to. That sounds like a good aim, even though I am on the other side of the globe in a different time zone. So I am pledging to read to my two (even though I always do). How about you?

Mass production

Alicia Martín has created these large scale works with books. One constructed of 5000 (from out of date textbooks I hope). They have a Dr. Suess megaphonish resemblance quality to me.

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From Amandine Alessandra these displays start from the quote “A book that is shut is but a block” and then look deeper as the blocks are used to construct letters, reminiscent of typesetting. Letters were constructed and white space created by wooden blocks, like the white books used here.