Releasing books into the wild............has anyone else heard of this really cool book club?

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A friend of mine told me about a brilliant book club this weekend. It's a "read and release" concept.

You take a book you really love and register it with www.bookcrossing.com, along with your comments about it. Then you label the book with the web address and ID number, and leave it in a public place like an airplane seat pocket or a park bench. The idea is that the next person who picks it up reads it, logs onto the website to post comments and whereabouts of the book, then leaves it for someone else to find.

You can log into the website, and see where books have been released (all over the world) - so you can go book hunting!! It's like a treasure hunt!! It rocks!!

I love the concept of well-loved book experiences free-floating around the planet.

I know the chain will probably get broken, but I thought it an excellent ideain principle - has anyone else heard of it? Or is anyone else already in on it? What do you think?

― C J, Monday, 8 July 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

im on it and am yet to pick up a damn book from it. i released a book a week ago. nothing has turned up yet.

― Chris, Monday, 8 July 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

what a cool idea!

― Josh, Monday, 8 July 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

seven months pass...

There was an article about this in the Guardian last week, I think. I won't do it that way because I at least like to know where my books are, and that they are being taken care of. I would hate to think of a book I loved ending up being swept up in the trash at the end of a train journey. But my mate Emma has had my copy of Number Nine Dream for over a year, but at least I know where it is and that she loved it.

― KATE, Thursday, 27 February 2003 10:24 (twenty-two years ago)

there was also an article in the independant a couple of weeks before that which included some thoughts on which books to distribute and how to distribute them. the one example i remember involved throwing a copy of 'On The Road' at the next hitch-hiker you saw.

looking at the site there seem to be an awful lot of long books in there (i saw several copies of steven king's 'The Stand' mentioned in the horror section, the expanded version of which runs to over a thousand pages). i can't help but think you'd get more mileage out of books that people could read in an afternoon, 'The Little Prince' for instance (which i see hmv has huge bins of by their checkouts for a pound a throw)

andy

― koogs (koogs), Thursday, 27 February 2003 10:57 (twenty-two years ago)

Giving a newish book that you have just read to a local library sounds like a much, much better idea.

― Pete (Pete), Thursday, 27 February 2003 10:59 (twenty-two years ago)

Oh Pete, much as I love libraries... where's the ROMANCE in that? Matt left Out of the Silent Planet on the top deck of the number 5 bus to Hove on Monday. It's so exciting!

― Archel (Archel), Thursday, 27 February 2003 11:04 (twenty-two years ago)

Actually someone left Bury My Heart Are Wounded Knee in my office on Monday which I snaffled up so I kinda get this. ANd i love doing in on holiday.

Re: Bury My Heart: is the author Dee male or female. Cos on the author blurb is bangs on about "his boyhood" but in the copyright bit is says "the Author has asserted her right...."

― Pete (Pete), Thursday, 27 February 2003 11:23 (twenty-two years ago)

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