Thursday 15 May 2014

Wild Books


Have you heard of releasing a book into the wild? It is when you leave a book in a public place to be claimed by some lucky random person, there is a message in the book asking for the stranger to re-release the book when they have read it. If you register with the "book crossing" website, you can track where the book goes.
I love the idea and i also wonder whether many random book finders are up for playing the game. I am about to find out.
In my ongoing attempt to beat clutter I have selected a number of books for re-homing and what better to do with them than free them to the workings of serendipity? I have ordered  cute stickers to put on the books explaining what to do with them and how to register them for global tracking, now i just have to wait for the stickers and figure out where to free the books.
I had a number of childrens books that a freecycler was interested in picking up until she realised that they were above the ability level of her boys so i am considering releasing some childrens books as well, wouldnt that be a wonderful thing for a kid to take an interest in?

Where might you release a book?
Might you put a handwritten message in it?

18 comments:

  1. What a cool idea! By the way, how were the books? I know the story of Snow Falling on Cedars, though I am ashamed to admit I have not actually read it. Not sure how I would feel reading about the “lives” of cadavers, but The Girl Made of Dust is a very captivating title! :)

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  2. It is a long time since I read Snow Falling on Cedars but as I remember it was quite good, the Girl made of Dust was a quick, easy little read, a story of a child in a war zone. I liked it. The lives of cadaveres was a great book for a CSI/ science nerd to read :)

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  3. An artist friend in Miami was among a group who did similar with sketches. By all accounts the idea was well received.

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  4. thats a great way to make art accessible to everyone!

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  5. It is a brilliant idea but I do not go to many places where I can do this. What I did recently was to donate all my fiction books to a Senior Citizens group who had been asking for such donations. I will shortly address my non fiction library to cull some more to get the library ready for new acquisitions.

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  6. Ramana,
    Ideally (from a storage point of view) i would never have new acquisitions but thats just not feasible!

    I dont know of any place that wants books and apart from the ones i think are suitable for release, i have quite a few others to find homes for

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  7. I would like to release some of my atheist magazines, but have yet to figure out where best to do it.

    People here in the U.S. sometimes put a tracking website address on dollar bills so one can keep up with where they go.

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  8. put the atheist magazines in the most hypocritical church you know of?

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  9. I would have to attend to get inside, and I worry that it would be a waste anyway.

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  10. I like the idea of releasing a book to someone else who will appreciate it - or a whole string of people. But I don't quite see the point of tracking the book indefinitely, except out of idle curiosity. Why not just let it go where it goes?

    Maybe a coffee shop would be a good place to release a few books - with the shop's agreement of course.

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  11. the reason to track it is curiosity! and maybe a sense of community?

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  12. Kylie, I can't find how to follow your blog. I have emailed, but have been told your email is no more :(

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  13. gary,
    at this stage i have no clue how you can follow it but i'll see if i can sort it out. meanwhile my email is taikylie@yahoo.com.au

    thanks for visiting!

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  14. I just want to know
    I am definitely not anti Christian
    As long as they are not anti john gray x

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  15. Our local library does that.

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  16. I pass a lot of books on to Friends of the Library. They sell them for a nominal fee and give the money to the library.

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  17. CM & snow,
    As far as I know libraries here dont take donations of used books but i have to admit i dont usually go to libraries :)

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