The only problem with bookswapping …

… is that you end up with the same number of books. Maybe I should have joined one of the other forums – there are quite a few now.

The most radical is Bookcrossing (http://bookcrossing.com/) where the basic principle is that you release books into the wild for people to discover. Each book gets an id and you hope that the finder pops by the website to register it’s find enabling books to be tracked on their journey from reader to reader. No postage involved – environmentally friendly, but that scheme is not for me – I don’t like the idea of the books being abandoned like that.

Then there’s Bookmooching (http://www.bookmooch.com/). In this scheme you list books you’re happy to give away, other people request them and you send them off receiving points for doing so. Then you can use your points to request books from others. Good in that initially you may make room on your shelves, but once you get the points you’ll soon fill them up again … The points system seems a bit complicated for me with lots of multiples and tenths of points involved, a send and receive ratio to maintain, and there’s up front P&P.

The one I’ve gone with is ReadItSwapIt (http://www.readitswapit.co.uk/TheLibrary.aspx) which is a straight-forward bookswapping system. You list your books, someone wants one – you look at theirs and if you like one – you swap and send each other your books. It works really well and in the couple of years I’ve been a member I’ve swapped nearly 350 books. The only problem is you don’t decrease the number of books you have, and that’s quite a lot of P&P – but you are often tempted to pick books you wouldn’t necessarily buy and you find as many gems as duds. It has links to Amazon and Librarything for each book too so you can read reviews etc before you choose a swap.

You end up with book mountains like this one though – it’s double depth, and just one of several that don’t fit on the shelves. Any suggestions on what I should promote to my reading next pile from it will be welcome!

0 thoughts on “The only problem with bookswapping …

  1. Fluffyblue says:

    I have to say that my book pile looks very similar, only I seem to have acquired about four times as many books as I’ve given away. That’s because I only recently discovered the joys of charity shops! I think we both need to adopt the one-in-one-out principle!Michaela

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