16/52: Try Bookcrossing

Bookcrossing is a method of sharing books with others.  You register your books on the site, annotate the books with the unique ID number and then release the books to be found and shared with other people.  You can either release the book direct to someone who has the book on their wishlist, or the way that appealed to me is that you can release the book 'in the wild'.  This means packaging and leaving the book somewhere it is likely to be found. e.g. on a bus, in a cafe, etc.

I've been aware of this for a long time but never got round to joining in but this week I released 6 books in the wild around Trowbridge.


The idea is that when (or if) the book is found the recipient logs on to the bookcrossing site and registers that they have found the book and when they have finished reading it, it is released again in the wild, and so on ...

I'm not sure that I will do this again. I like the idea of sharing books in this way and although I have never found one I know I'd be excited if I did.  However, there is no guarantee that the book will be found (or you may not know it is found as the finder doesn't register it) and a big part of my brain is screaming that this could be seen as a form of littering or as a suspicious package and I felt uncomfortable about leaving the books.

Still I've done it for now ( although I may go back in a couple of weeks and remove the books if they are still there - they're very visible and if they haven't been collected in 2 weeks then I don't think they will be) and it is another thing crossed of the list - 36 more to do.

Comments

  1. Our local pub (The Yew Tree Inn at Boreham) has a load of books on their mantle shelf, for free exchange or borrow. So far I've borrowed 3 books and also given them a couple of mine, I think its a great idea. And in All Cannings they have used an old telephone kiosk as a swapping library - but I think you already know about that.
    Joy xx

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  2. Sounds like a good idea - but I think I would feel the same as you.

    ReplyDelete
  3. I suppose it is a good idea in theory
    but not too sure about if it would appeal to me...

    I got a kindle recently
    and have downloaded so many books
    that I think I will be 102 or dead
    before I get to read them all!
    So definitely won't be bookcrossing!

    x

    x

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