Book Crossing

Book Crossing is something you may already have heard of; it's the sort of thing that occasionally makes it into the bookish pages of broadsheets and lifestyle columns. If not though, the premis is thus: each book has a BookCrossing ID; when you've read the book, leave it in a public place for someone else to find; they can then log the book on the site, with their review attached; and you watch a beautiful literary journey unfold. Pretty neat and kooky, right?

So, there I was in a book exchange (I have no idea why it's called this, given that you pay for the books) in Notting Hill, and I found a book by one of my favourite writers: Ever After, by Graham Swift. (I've started the book, and I'm pretty busy right now and can't give it my full attention, due to essay crises, but suffice to say it's about a disaffected academic who recently tried to kill himself, and is battling between love and intelligence - it's right up my street!)

Anyway, flicking through the book I found that it had a BookCrossing ID: 651-3540751. Here is its history:

Oddly, I used to live just five minutes away from that very phone box (though not in 2005). I have no idea why the book is categorised under 'teens'. The site is pretty ugly, but they can work on that.

More to the point, the lack of Crossings makes me wonder, more than most books I buy second hand, about the journey the book has had.  Did the person who 'released' (what an odd verb to apply) have a particular person in mind, who they thought might pick it up? Has it been sitting in the Notting Hill bookshop since early 2006? (Certainly, the book was reduced from £3 to £2 to £1 to 50p, so that's a possibility!) Who gave it to the bookshop? Surely that it utterly against the ethos of the site  - and, as soon as I read the description - I felt complicit in a system that keeps knowledge and beauty (the difficult relationship between both is something that all Swift's novels contain) away from people, rather than encouraging them to read. If I saw a book left on a bus, I'd definitely read it - and take it home to continue reading - but would I ever give the book back to the public who gave it to me? I don't think so. I love owning books - who doesn't? - but the idea of not sharing the book also offends my sense of the importance of sharing books. Unfortunately, I think this situation is self-perpetuating - of course people are most likely to keep the books they enjoy the most, thus encouraging more shit to be shared, rather than more life-changing stuff.

I've not yet finished the book. What will I do when I do? I'd like to think I'll send it back into the wider world, so that someone else can enjoy. As a snippet from the New York Times says on the site, 'if you love your books, let them go': but is this too hard, as in the real life relationships that they parody, to do? From a cursory scan of the site, it seems to be very popular in mainland Europe. Maybe the continentals are more lovely than us?

EDIT: I wrote this a few weeks ago - some time in mid-August. I finished the book pretty quickly. I enjoyed it; as such, I won't be 'releasing' it back, because I want to own it. Anyway, isn't that what libraries are for? I don't feel bad about keeping the book. Bookcrossing is far too idealistic; the organisers have failed to acknowledge the weaknesses of their intended audience.

You should definitely read Ever After, but just not my copy.