Oh. My. God!

I knew it had to exist. I just knew, but I hadn’t managed to turn up anything during my (halfhearted) internet searches.

Last Saturday I took three books along with me to the Phoenix Writers, intending to get more Book Fairy offerings floating around through different channels. I explained, in brief, what I was trying to do by sending these books off into the wild and Maria asked ‘is that like the Book Crossing?’ Having never heard of it before I had to ask what that was about and, as it turns out, the Book Crossing really is a bigger, badder (and far more sophisticated) version of the Book Fairy.

I had a little skim of their website and though I haven’t joined it yet (and therefore can’t access many of the features) I can see that there is a massive amount of books floating around. And these books are travelling all over the world! They have labels and identification numbers so that they can be followed wherever they go.

Part of me is a little disappointed that someone ‘got there first,’ but the rest of me is thrilled that there is such a well organised initiative to share books. After all, books are made to be shared and the fact that a system exists to do so (other than a library, I mean), warms me. What I need to do now is decide whether I want to send my books through the world with the Book Crossing, or if I want to just keep going it alone. I’m yet to decide, but there’s no rush. I still have six stickers left so that’s at least six more books to get going. I left a couple on the train the other day, so I’m still really enjoying myself.

Do any of you guys use Book Crossing? Have you heard of it before? Have you come across any of their books on your travels? I would love to know; I feel like I missed a trick with this site, having not heard of it before.