Tuesday, October 24, 2006

Bookcrossing.com

Bookcrossing is about people leaving books around in public in the hope that someone will find the book, read it, and then leave it for someone else to find. The book is registered on Bookcrossing.com so that the progress of the book can be tracked as it moves around. The practice started in America a few years ago and is flourishing around the world, and is simply about sharing books with complete strangers (with a serendipity aspect to it).

Those who release books need to be registered on Bookcrossing.com, in order to get a code identifier for your book, but those who catch them can remain anonymous.

Anyway, I registered in March but only got round to releasing a book into "the wild" on Sunday. I was thrilled to discover from the website today that the book had been picked up by someone called Pam - progress on this book can be followed here. I left my book in a cafe, which I recommend as it is warm and dry, and the book will stay undamaged - I put a label on the front of it, so people knew it wasn't a lost-and-found, and a note inside explaining what it was all about.

I really recommend people try this out - there is something really pleasant and serendipitous about leaving and finding and sharing books with strangers. I hope my book makes it around Britain at least, if not around the world!

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

this is a wonderful concept.


perhaps you will report on the passage of the books, as it progresses.


a truely wonderful concept.