BookCrossing

[phat32]

From http://www.bookcrossing.com/books:

BookCrossing lets you share your books with the world, and track their individual journeys forever more. Our members have registered 2,306,208 books so far, and a good number of these are "in the wild" at any one time. The links here cover just about anything you might want to do with a book here on our site.

Here's an idea I wanted to pass along. A friend introduced me to the idea of BookCrossing. It works like "Where's George?", and basically, you label your books with a sticker tag leading back to the BookCrossing site and leave your used books in public places for other people to discover (and hopefully, read).

If you're lucky, your book finder will log in to BookCrossing and "journal" their find.

I haven't started yet, but with all the paperbacks in my house just taking up space, I'm considering it. Anyone else?

[geek the girl]

It's a great idea, and I know people who swear by bookcrossing. I'm much too clingy when it comes to my books to part from even the bad ones, though. I like to own loads and loads of books. Given that it's pretty much my only indulgence, I think I'll carry on collecting books for a while longer. I know for a fact that bookcrossing works though; a friend of mine released a book in central Stockholm that later ended up in a laundromat in Canada

[CCL]

Mm, I've heard of this before. It is an interesting idea. I'd worry people would judge my book choices or the condition of my books, though. Sad, just sad.

[LG.]

my fiance and I are trying to consolidate two households into one house soon, and we have a TON of books without the space for all of them. We can't just dump boxes of them (i.e. HIS sci-fi books, ooops, did I say that out loud) in public places, but I do like this idea.

Anyone read Laurie Notaro's more recent books about the parts where she and her bookworm husband have a pact that they will each get rid of a current book everytime they bring a new one into the household (as it was also overrun with books?). The upshoot was that both Laurie and her hubby had "secret stashes" of their newest books that they were hiding from the other as neither of them could bear to part with any of their precious books. Funny stuff.

[Honeyspur]

Bookcrossing is a very rewarding experience.

I've done it several times and it feels good to know my book is going into interested hands, instead of collecting dust or going to some unknown in a bookstore. I also don't like giving books to friends because they just never seem to read them.

It's easy, kind of thrilling at times, to leave your book somewhere and then check your "library" page to see the person who picked it up.
The community itself is worldwide, people have "want-lists" that you swap directly with or clubs of bookswapping, where you can sign on and get a book a month. It's very much worth some investigation, especially if you need to curb your book spending habit, but don't want to sacrifice your avid reading needs.