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If You Really Loved it� Let it
Go
You finish your book. You pause for refelection. Then what? Whether
you loved it, thought it was, well, OK… or hated it, it doesn’t
really matter, because, there you go, you put it on the shelf
no matter what you thought of it. And there it usually stays,
quietly gathering dust. Until, on a cold dreary day, you slide
it out and flick through it, contemplating a reread… but
you don’t, you put it back on the shelf, or on top of the wardrobe!
Why Not Let It Go?
What a waste! Instead of letting a book you’ve just read moulder
on your bookshelf, or prop up a table on an uneven floor, why
not let it go? Why not give all your read and unloved/untouched-for-years
books their freedom? Let somebody else read them.
Not a good use for books you’ve read!
An organisation called The Book Crossing, encourages you to do
just that. And, having done so, they invite you to log back into
their website and see where your freed book ends up.
Better Than A Message In A Bottle
Let the idea gel in your imagination. You set a book free. You
put it down in, say, a London café on purpose and walk
away and forget about it. But you can’t. It nags in the back of
your brain. Who found it? Where were they from? Did they enjoy
it? Where is it now? If you have ever launched a message in a
bottle, you’ll know that feeling. But, it is a rare thing to find
out where your bottled message ended up. With your freed book…
you can. Singapore? Sydney? Seattle? Stockport? Your book could
end up anywhere! If the finder plays the game, you’ll be able
to track its progress.
It is such a simple idea, you wonder how come nobody ever did
it before. Here’s how it works. You open a free account and register
the book you are about to set free on the Book Crossing website.
The website gives you a unique number and you write this on a
label, which you stick in the book. Then you leave your book in
a public place… café, waiting room, park bench, on
a train, a boat, a plane… anywhere someone might find it
and pick it up.
Download free labels and stick one in
your about to be freed book
They take it with them. Seeing the label and the ID number (a
BCID, they call it – Book Crossing ID), and if the finder is a
sport, they can go to the website, enter the unique number and
report it found and where. Then, they in turn, let it go. You
can then go back onto the website every now and again and check
on your book’s progress. Great fun, as the book is freed over
and over… ending up… well that’s the point. It can end
up anywhere in the world, getting read again and again. Which
has to be better than it just sitting on your shelf gathering
dust.
Simple. It’s Free too, of course.
Caution
A word of caution, however. If you have written your name in your
book (as you do), then cross it out. The first book I freed, I
didn’t do that. The very next day, after I left it in a bar not
a million miles away from here, the phone rang. It was helpful
Roger. Told me not to worry… he’d found the book I’d lost
and would keep it for me until next we met!
Go for it. Choose a book to free. Register it and download free
labels (or make your own) from the Book Crossing website. Write
in the BCID in the space provided, stick the label in your book
and launch it into the unknown. And wait for it to turn up somewhere
in the world. You won’t be alone… you’ll be joining 909,713
BookCrossers and 6,796,015 books travelling throughout 132 countries…
and counting!
Get ready to launch – open a free account
today!
– click the image above to be taken to the Book Crossing website
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