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"A book is not only a friend, it makes friends for you. When you have possessed a book with mind and spirit, you are enriched. But when you pass it on you are enriched threefold."
-Henry MillerA previous blog raved about the book swapping us bibliphilic geeks can engage in. One problem with that system: the books I want to send on their way tend to languish on the ever-tighter book shelf whilst I wait for someone to request them. One of my absolute favorite coffee-shop/hostel kinda things when traveling the world are the free book swaps that pop up everywhere from the dusty beach town in Nicaragua to the Chancellor Hotel of San Francisco, to even the occasional slightly-less corporate Starbucks in podunk. As one can imagine, I am one of those throwbacks who still love to send and receive postcards via post, not electronica. Part of the romantic appeal is that this memento had to travel through many hands in foreign lands before nesting with me. Each book is a special piece of heart and life, it represents a sliver of my world in a certain time of life, even as it brings its own segment of dimension into consciousness.
A dear friend and I once had entire days’ worth of laughs over the curious discovery of a number of hot pink painted plaster cherubs. Really. There we were, strolling about UCLA, and we noticed the random pink sculpture on a bland concrete rail. All morn we "angel hunted", spying one at the flagpole, another at that phone booth…we only took 2 home (after looking about to see if it was Ok). Later learned it was all part of an artistic endeavor to place these gaudily painted angels all over L.A. ( a city direly in need of some spontanious mirth) to spread…something. I can only speak for us in that it spread some fun and injected that element of discovery and a shared experience. Isn’t that what art is about? Not mere aesthetics, but actual experience and emotion?
I’ve oft thought about the mysterious books I have picked up, passed on, donated forward. I wonder about their new readers, whether they were moved by the same moment, laughed at the same places, dreamt about the faraway place now lingering in our imaginations. And I often wished I could track them down…
Lo, while scouting online for a bookish sweater (a tedious mission to secure a certain not-all-too cute J. Crew cardigan that is horrifically overpriced, yet which I must procure for no other reason than that it is trimmed with book designs.) the sweater mission became sidtracked by Book Crossing!!
Hurrah, some kind bibliophiles across the entire world with far superior technical skills have already set up the foundations for worldwide book exchanges and tracking! Imagine, individuals in 120 other countries have similarly ambivalent love, posession, yet sharing compulsions about their tomes. And now, there’s a home base. Google Book crossings and set some of those precious words free upon the world…
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