Please Release Me
Today I set a book free...I released it to the wild world of readers. A few days ago I read about www.BookCrossing.com, a website dedicated to setting books free to be read by others and tracking the progress of the book, maybe around the world. One member called it "commiting random acts of literacy."
I checked it out and I've found a new hobby. It looks like a simple, fun, cheap thing to do that is sort of like geocaching or sending messages in bottles...maybe even like the concept of "pay it forward." All you do is to sign up on the website (free), read a book, get a tracking number off the website, complete the release notes that log the book into the system, label the book (download and print on your computer system) and then leave the book somewhere in public view to be picked up and read by someone else.
When the book is found the label tells the new reader to go to the website and log the book back in, read it and then release it again! It's one of those human connection things that I find fascinating. There are nearly half a million members at BookCrossing and close to three million books released around the world.
When my book is found by someone, if they log it in, I'll get an email to let me know when it was found and hopefully when it is next released. I can follow the travels of my book. There's space for readers to review and comment on books. Readers can also check their city to find spots where books have been released. In this way it is like geocaching. I checked out the "hunting" page and found that 94 books have been released in Mesa, AZ in the last 30 days.
We have limited book storage space in our little house so rather than donating books back to Goodwill I'll now be setting them free all across the country..at Starbucks, in waiting rooms, on store shelves. I said goodbye to The Maze by Catherine Coulter in the library lounge of our current RV Park. There were lots of other books there, but this one is now on a special journey.