Bookcrossing

This article on Bookcrossing is pretty interesting, at least for book whores like myself. If you're not aware of the practice, the website defines bookcrossing as the practice of leaving a book in a public place to be picked up and read by others, who then do likewise.

While not a new practice by any means, the website gives you the added pleasure of tracking the books you scatter to the winds. You register it on the site, affix the tracking number, and people who find it can add to the book's history. You can then see everywhere your book travels. If you're looking for a book you can also use the site to hunt down books in your area.

Kind of a world-wide library of sorts, with the randomness of it all giving it kind of a Borgesian or Pynchonian feel. I've never done one myself, but I've found a couple in the D.C. area. One that started out in Seattle, and another with origins in Italy. Maybe I'll do one and post results (if any) here. I've been selling some of my books lately on ebay, sometimes at a loss, to give them new life. But this is more appealing since you get more of a sense of it living on and more people enjoying it. I just need to pick a worthy book, a book that Josephina Barrista at the local coffee house won't toss out with the trash.

Excelsior.