If you answer ‘yes’ to four or more of the following questions, maybe you should become a BookCrosser too…

1. Do you like to read?
2. Do you have books on your shelves that you haven’t looked at since William Shatner gave up being Captain Kirk (the first time)?
3. Do you like telling people about the books you have read?
4. Do you like the idea of performing a RAoK (Random Act of Kindness)?
5. Do you like finding neat things that you can take home with you, which you don’t have to pay for and won’t get arrested for putting in your pocket?
6. Can you bear to give away books that you’ve read once or twice but aren’t likely to read again and they’re only going to block up the space for new books or maybe hold open that cupboard that hasn’t closed for years anyway because of the amount of junk in it and you know you need to get rid of some of these damn books but you can’t be bothered to take them to a used book store and you don’t know what else to do with them but doing something really creative with them would be good but handing out books on the street only makes people look at you sideways and walk really really really fast to get away from you?
(7. Do you think I’ve had too much coffee??? Huh? Huh? Do ya???)

Then maybe you should register at a cool site called BookCrossing, which aims to get people to read books, and then “set them free in the wild” for other readers to enjoy. The idea is that they then log the books, and you can see where your book has travelled, and what the people who read it think about it. It’s free, and almost 2 million (yes, 2 million) books have been registered with the site so far. I’ve just released my first book this afternoon, so if you can get to the bench outside the stained glass window at St James Church, Finchampstead, first, them you can read ‘The Secret Life of Bees’ by Sue Monk Kidd. (Just log it please if you do, so I know what happened to my book!) That was exciting, but I’m also looking forward to finding my first book, too… The guy (and his wife) who thought up the idea have turned it into a really neat online community, and I invite you all to join! (And so does he, by the way…)

I’m not going to tell you any more, because I think you need to go and see it for yourself.
NOW!
‘Cause it’s COOL!

(Man, I have to stop going to Starbucks…)