Dear You,
You probably know that I buy my books more often than I ever get them from a library. When I have a couple of disposable dollars, I like to go to Borders or Barnes & Noble, and my favorite finds are on the remainders tables, where I can get a fat hardbound that cost $25 or more for only four or five or six bucks.
It makes it all the easier to give them away. http://www.bookcrossing.com/ has helped me in my enterprise, and I recommend it to you. For the record, if you'd care to look at the books I've read since joining, I'm "Manomet," a name I chose from the town where I owned a vacation home for 20 or so years.
The Random Acts of Kindness aspect particularly calls to me. I like the anonymity, the serendipity. But even I was surprised when my wife, traveling home recently and on a layover at JFK airport was handed a Dick Francis novel from a fellow sitting nearby. All I know is that he'd bought something in Dulles, Virginia that morning and a bottle of Guiness at JFK four hours later -- that from the two sales receipts he'd kept in the book for page markers. Instead of lugging the finished book onto the next airplane, he passed it along . . . and it got to me.
So, of course, I'm passing it along to you, in a sense. If you check my BookCrossing site for Dick Francis' Longshot, you can learn where I have left it.
Finder's Keepers . . . unless you, too, give it away.
Showing posts with label BookCrossing. Show all posts
Showing posts with label BookCrossing. Show all posts
Thursday, July 17, 2008
Tuesday, August 21, 2007
Shuffle
Dear You,
The upstairs back bedroom got a new coat of paint, and the queen-sized bed is now installed there. The middle bedroom has the twin beds, stacked, so that turns it back into the office it was a dozen years ago. Yesterday, after many trips up and down stairs from basement to third floor our possessions have been sorted, shuffled, and reorganized.
Some are being discarded. For books that means two things -- I'll set up a table at the end of the driveway today: "Free Books!" and they'll be gone by early afternoon. For the others, I've added the serial numbers from my BookCrossing membership, and I'll leave them (anonymously, of course) in public places. You can find them online at BookCrossing.com -- look for me there -- I'm "Manomet" to that fraternity.
It's good now and then to turn stuff over, as one does with a compost pile; the result yields something more profitable than if it just sits there year after year. "Oh, I was going to read that book -- I'd forgotten it was there!" I exclaim. Or "I'll bet Chuck would enjoy reading this one -- I'll send it to him." "This old thing still hanging around, taking up space? Pitch it!"
And that's not even considering how clean and fresh things look . . . for now.
The upstairs back bedroom got a new coat of paint, and the queen-sized bed is now installed there. The middle bedroom has the twin beds, stacked, so that turns it back into the office it was a dozen years ago. Yesterday, after many trips up and down stairs from basement to third floor our possessions have been sorted, shuffled, and reorganized.
Some are being discarded. For books that means two things -- I'll set up a table at the end of the driveway today: "Free Books!" and they'll be gone by early afternoon. For the others, I've added the serial numbers from my BookCrossing membership, and I'll leave them (anonymously, of course) in public places. You can find them online at BookCrossing.com -- look for me there -- I'm "Manomet" to that fraternity.
It's good now and then to turn stuff over, as one does with a compost pile; the result yields something more profitable than if it just sits there year after year. "Oh, I was going to read that book -- I'd forgotten it was there!" I exclaim. Or "I'll bet Chuck would enjoy reading this one -- I'll send it to him." "This old thing still hanging around, taking up space? Pitch it!"
And that's not even considering how clean and fresh things look . . . for now.
Wednesday, July 18, 2007
Booked Solid
Dear You,
By my rough calculation my brothers and I collectively have been reading books for over a century and a half. We read voraciously -- have done so since we learned how. I noticed that habit again on my recent visit with them. When nothing else beckons, we reach for a book, and a book is always within reach. We have devoured them by the hundreds.
My current book concerns the 1854 cholera outbreak in London -- The Ghost Map. A friend lent me her copy, and I expect quite a few others will read that copy . . . and its clones . . . before it joins other titles down the River Styxx of memory. I love the way my friends and acquaintences think of me when they finish reading something they have enjoyed. I love the way a library card opens the door to a myriad of books wherever I go. I love BookCrossing (it's online!) to see what others are reading, so that when I paw through the remainders tables at Borders or B&N I can do more than "judge a book by its cover" that I've spotted for $3.95 And of course I love yard sales, where I've purchased an entire box of books for a couple of bucks.
So there we were in northern Michigan, my brothers and I, talking about books along with all the other things we have in common. If "reading maketh a whole man," then we were certainly being wholly ourselves.
By my rough calculation my brothers and I collectively have been reading books for over a century and a half. We read voraciously -- have done so since we learned how. I noticed that habit again on my recent visit with them. When nothing else beckons, we reach for a book, and a book is always within reach. We have devoured them by the hundreds.
My current book concerns the 1854 cholera outbreak in London -- The Ghost Map. A friend lent me her copy, and I expect quite a few others will read that copy . . . and its clones . . . before it joins other titles down the River Styxx of memory. I love the way my friends and acquaintences think of me when they finish reading something they have enjoyed. I love the way a library card opens the door to a myriad of books wherever I go. I love BookCrossing (it's online!) to see what others are reading, so that when I paw through the remainders tables at Borders or B&N I can do more than "judge a book by its cover" that I've spotted for $3.95 And of course I love yard sales, where I've purchased an entire box of books for a couple of bucks.
So there we were in northern Michigan, my brothers and I, talking about books along with all the other things we have in common. If "reading maketh a whole man," then we were certainly being wholly ourselves.
Tuesday, June 12, 2007
Left behind
Dear You,
Without a map, I'm easily lost. So I cannot say as I write this exactly where I was when I left the little restaurant where I was having lunch and spotted a rare books store nearby. At any rate, there I was, looking down through the glass at not just one, but three!, first editions of Hemingway's A Farewell to Arms. Since they could not be handled without the shop owner's giving me access, I cannot say for certain, but I think the date they were created was 1925. I'll check that later. What I can say is that one could have been mine . . . for four thousand dollars.
I looked around the shop and saw that it was given almost entirely to first editions -- and prices everywhere made me think that these books were -- if not completely out of reach -- at least unreasonable. That is to say, they didn't fit into my value system. Oh, there was room on my MasterCard (I don't leave home, let alone go across the country without that!). It's just that, for me, books are indispensible, but I tend to purchase them at low costs and then leave them for others.
Literally. I joined BookCrossing (go ahead -- google it). I register my books, read them, and then (most often, anyway) leave them in public places for others to find and enjoy . . . and I hope, pass them along. There's a little slip inside each of my "remainders" that will lead the finder to some knowledge of who I am, if they have computer access anyway.
As to the book I left behind in that shop yesterday, I don't know who bought it originally -- perhaps for 25 cents? -- nor through whose hands it passed before being acquired and placed under glass. I do wonder what it is really worth. And it's not as if I haven't read it before.
Without a map, I'm easily lost. So I cannot say as I write this exactly where I was when I left the little restaurant where I was having lunch and spotted a rare books store nearby. At any rate, there I was, looking down through the glass at not just one, but three!, first editions of Hemingway's A Farewell to Arms. Since they could not be handled without the shop owner's giving me access, I cannot say for certain, but I think the date they were created was 1925. I'll check that later. What I can say is that one could have been mine . . . for four thousand dollars.
I looked around the shop and saw that it was given almost entirely to first editions -- and prices everywhere made me think that these books were -- if not completely out of reach -- at least unreasonable. That is to say, they didn't fit into my value system. Oh, there was room on my MasterCard (I don't leave home, let alone go across the country without that!). It's just that, for me, books are indispensible, but I tend to purchase them at low costs and then leave them for others.
Literally. I joined BookCrossing (go ahead -- google it). I register my books, read them, and then (most often, anyway) leave them in public places for others to find and enjoy . . . and I hope, pass them along. There's a little slip inside each of my "remainders" that will lead the finder to some knowledge of who I am, if they have computer access anyway.
As to the book I left behind in that shop yesterday, I don't know who bought it originally -- perhaps for 25 cents? -- nor through whose hands it passed before being acquired and placed under glass. I do wonder what it is really worth. And it's not as if I haven't read it before.
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