Read a Chinese Book in 12 Minutes!

Our founder Ricky Soo might have organized many business and social events, but he actually started out with book sharing events when he founded BookPeckers in March 2013. The group was taken over by another leader one year later.

There have been requests from former members to organize book sharing events, now on the Pitch ‘n’ Win platform. We made a few attempts such as a talk on the book on body language, a talk on education and a book sharing on business and marketing.

This time we organized a book sharing session in the Chinese language called Book Sharing #2 – 12分钟听懂一本书!, it means to read and learn about a book in 12 minutes! The challenge is for the book presenter to “read” a book to the group in 12 minutes, and for the audience to “read” and understand a book in 12 minutes too.

Hosted by Evelyn Loh on 21st November 2014 in Storyteller’s Cafe, she started the session by introducing everyone and what the session is about. Then she passed the session to the book presenters to share for 12 minutes each.

Book sharing event in Storyteller's Cafe

Book sharing event in Storyteller’s Cafe

Altogether 6 books were presented covering life, psychology, self-improvement, business, investment and fiction as well. We also discussed some of the books at length after each book presentation.

  • 你对自己的看法 决定你的一切 by Evelyn Loh
  • 三体 by David Pan
  • 比天堂更美好的地方 就在人间 by Chear Swee Kwin
  • 巴菲特给青少年的忠告 by Wong Siew Leng
  • 世界如此险恶 你要内心强大 by Jimmy Lee
  • FREE by Ricky Soo

Keeping to the Pitch ‘n’ Win model, the whole group voted and chose one best book presenter from the 6 presenters. David Pan, an MBA student from China, received the highest number of votes.

It was a good trial to experiment whether the 12-minute book sharing makes sense or not. Obviously it was not enough for some books. But the time slot was meant to present a summary, an extract or a teaser of the book being shared, not meant to be a comprehensive introduction of the whole book.

Key Lessons

  • When in doubt if a new event works or not, just try it out!
  • 12 minutes to share a book is fine. But the discussion can take much time.

Book Sharing #2 – 12分钟听懂一本书! – Photo album

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