For a while now I’ve been wondering what to do with surplus but loved books. We’re contemplating the imminent downsizing of our life, and this is one of many things which we just have far too many of. The options so far have been

1. Donate them to charity (only the other week I loaded the car with two or three-hundred books and drove them to the local Oxfam bookshop). Comes with a charitable warm glow, but somehow unfulfilling just dumping them all off and then… nothing.
2. Sell them somehow - probably car boot or ebay, which is nice because we might get a little bit back for them, but books aren’t exactly a fast seller - people will only buy what they’re interested in, and that rarely meshes too well with what we are (or were) interested in - so I don’t imagine we’ll get rid of many or get rid of them fast this way.
3. Give them to friends with a recommendation - something very nice about this one, but one only has so many friends, each with limited time, and only so many shared interests, and besides despite thinking about this occasionally over the last couple of years I’ve yet to give any away. I did try participating in a friend’s literary equivalent of the chain letter - send a book you enjoyed to the person at the top of the list, pass it on to six friends and in a few weeks you’ll have a whole new library of the best books in the world, but despite parting with a much-loved copy of The Good Soldier Svejk I sat by the postbox for months without ever seeing a single pamphlet in return (but I digress… I was talking about getting rid of books, not overburdening myself with new ones).

Anyway, I was just doing my usual 4am insomniac’s doze to the World Service when I heard about a better way than any of these - Book Crossing. Print out a label from the website, stick it on your book, leave it in a public place, and wait for (hopefully) somebody appreciative to pick it up and post their comments to the site. Beautiful. Every aspect of it appeals to me - the altruism, the chance introduction to like minded people, the fun and art of involved deciding where to leave a book, the randomness of who gets to find it, it’s perfect!

Let’s just hope the publishing industry doesn’t decide to come over all music-industry-like and try to stamp out this practice (yes, I know it’s not quite the same, that there’s only ever one copy of the book, but still… it shows just how fun sharing can be).

First thing tomorrow I’m gonna sticker-up my copy of American Tabloid and see if I can find somewhere appropriate to leave it. Lemme see… a grassy knoll? A…. book depository?