I read this in the paper last week and thought of you immediately! Seems that Book Crossing idea is catching on.
Posted Wednesday, January 15, 2003 - 8:01 pm e-mail this story to a friend
If you really love a book, set it free
Jeanne Brooks
The last book set free was sometime after 7:30 a.m., yesterday. The last book set free in the Upstate, that is.
The "read and release" movement is international now and has been embraced with particular enthusiasm in Italy, Canada and Australia.
The idea is sort of a modern-day version of a message in a bottle, or a note tied to a balloon and loosed to the winds -- only, the message/note is book length, and somebody else wrote it.
Here's how it works. People register books on a Web site (www.bookcrossing.com), then leave them in public places for strangers to find and read.
A label or bookmark asks the finder to let the Website know where the book was discovered and how the finder liked reading it. That way, someone who sets a book free can track its travels.
On Wednesday, quietly, without drawing attention, an unknown person left a copy of "The Languid Goat is Always Thin" at Jittery Joe's on Main Street, in Anderson.
Released it into the wild, as the Book Crossing people say.
That was the second release at Jittery Joe's. Last summer, on July 19, a different someone left "Out to Canaan (The Mitford Years)."
Even earlier, on June 11, someone from Piedmont left two books at the Peace Center fountain in Greenville.
On Dec. 31, someone from Pelzer set three books free in the "visitor's lounge of the Anmed Health Center on Highway 81," according to the entry on the Website.
In Greer, books were released into the wild of the Dill Creek Bi-Lo (Sept. 15) and Sub Station II at Greer Plaza (Sept. 16).
In Greenville, books have been left at such various locations as "Haywood Mall, center court, near fountain" (two books), Rocky Creek Baptist Church (two books), "Rockwell Automation canteen inside main building at 6040 Ponders Court" (one book), at Blockbuster Video on East North Street (one book), among other places.
The free Book Crossing site is the brainchild of 36-year-old Ron Hornbaker, booklover and a partner in a software development company. Bookcrossing.com went on line in April 2001.
"Last March," he says, "we only had 1,200 members." But things took off, big time. In less than a year, Book Crossing has added 78,500 new members in more than 80 nations.
So far this January, Hornbaker says, "We're averaging 500 new members a day."
Rome, Italy has the most. Washington, D.C., is No. 2. Atlanta is No. 9. Charlotte, No. 46. Charleston is No. 102, and Greenville-Spartanburg come in at No. 139. Columbia is No. 175.
Anderson makes the top-10 list of cities with the fastest-growing membership this week.
The Website lists dates and locations of releases by country, state and city if you're interested in hunting for a book that's been set free.
The Website tells us, for instance, that someone 30 years old from Alpharetta, Ga. left two books at the Arby's in Walhalla on Oct. 6.
Those are undoubtedly gone by now.
But just this past Monday, 34-year-old Mary Elizabeth Land, new Book Crossing member, quietly set free a copy of "The Red Tent."
She left it with a handwritten note that said something along the lines of, "This is a great book, and it's yours. Enjoy it. Read it, and hand it off to someone else."
Booklovers in Abbeville might want to check the seats carefully next time they're in Pizza Hut.
Jeanne Brooks' column appears on Sunday, Tuesday and Thursday. She can be reached at (864) 298-4261.
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Logan, as generous a person as you are, I find that hard to believe. However, that was a bit of my concern too at starting. I started off with books that I had duplicates of on my shelves, and then moved on to books that I knew I wouldn't reread again. Now, I'm haunting second hand stores and garage sales for extra copies of old favorites to release. It's insidious (or I'm hopeless) or ... both!!!
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