Booklovers

A few notes for booklovers:

• I don’t think I’ve mentioned Bookcrossing except in passing on this Blog. Bookcrossing is a cool website where you can track the travels of books. First you register a book and put the unique Bookcrossing Identification number (BCID) inside the cover with a note pointing toward the Bookcrossing website. Then, you “release” the book. The release can take many forms: pass it on to a friend who would enjoy the book, leave the book on a park bench or in a doctor’s office waiting room, donate it to a library book sale, sell it to a used book store, or even trade with other Bookcrossing members on-line.

  Once out of your hands, it’s best to forget the book. Hopefully, at some time in the future, you’ll get an e-mail that your book has been journalled by someone else. This is a huge thrill, especially with “wild releases”, i.e. those that you don’t directly put into someone else’s hands.

  My first wild release that was journalled was Galileo’s Daughter by Dava Sobel. I released it in the St. James Hotel lobby in Red Wing Minnesota, and it was picked up and journalled by a woman from Somerset Wisconsin. She has since re-released it in Hawaii.

  I have now tracked some of my books to Senagal (The Alienist by Caleb Carr) and Maylasia (As Nature Made Him by John Calapinto). Check out my bookshelf to see where my books have travelled, and join up yourself…tell them rhombitruncated sent you.

• For you science fiction, fantasy and horror book lovers, you have got to check out sf-books.com, a site I discovered through Bookcrossing. It’s a book trading site that costs you nothing to join. List books that you’re willing to trade with other members, then when you send one out and it’s recieved, you get a credit that you can use to request a book from another member. This involves a bit of trust, but I have yet to lose a book or credit, and the webmaster will make things right if someone stiffs you.

  There are traders from all over the world, so you can set which regions you’ll trade with. Within the US, it only costs about $1.50 to send a book if you use the “media rate”. Most members don’t mind if you use the slowest, cheapest method for shipping, since it’s silly to spend more on shipping than you would on a new or used book. Plus they all have to-read piles just as large as yours.

  You can see what books I have up for trade on my sf-books.com profile page. If you sign up, tell them rhombitruncated sent you!

• Powell’s Books is holding a contest for book lovers. It’s an essay contest on your most memorable reading experience in the last 10 years, and the prize is $1000 in books from Powells. They’re taking submissions until August 31….I still need to write mine! (Thanks Suzanne for bringing the contest to my attention!)