A Life Less Interesting

Its been a while since I've posted here, and I'm determined not to let this stagnate. Sure, I'm not exactly into a six figure readership here but I should male the effort on my part if I expect anyone to make the effort to read...

With that in mind I thought I'd post about my most recent Web discovery, BookCrossing.com

The premise of the site is the sharing of books. If you're anything like me you have a huge pile of books waiting to be read, another huge pile that you're partway through and a third pile, the top of which has long since disappeared into the clouds, full of books you're finished with. Now, there is not enough shelving in Ikea for me to keep all of these books, so I either have to sell them on Ebay, palm them off onto semi-interested friends and family, or just donate them to charity.

The Ebay sales are generally more hassle then they are worth and it wont be long before all my family members have teetering piles of books of their own so mostly these books end up in a local charity shop.

BookCrossing.com presents an alternative. You register a book with them which gives it a unique BookCrossing number and then set it free somewhere. Leave it on the bus on your way to work, on a park bench, in your local coffee shop or post them through random peoples letter boxes.

You either write a manual note inside the cover, or use one of BookCrossing.com's preprinted Release stickers which point people towards the website and lists the BookCrossing number for the book. Hopefully they'll follow the link, make a quick note to say your free-flying book has been caged once more and then pass it on again once they are done with it.

As the site says It's also a fascinating exercise in fate, karma, or whatever you want to call the chain of events that can occur between two or more lives and one piece of literature. Oh, and we should mention, it's absolutely free and absolutely private, too.

Do your straining floorboards a favour and set some books free today. Let me know how you get on.