Spotting an abandoned book in the rotunda at the top of Australia Street in Newtown on my way to dinner last night, I was reminded of a fabulous concept I stumbled across several months ago: Book Crossing, http://www.bookcrossing.com/.
This delightfully whimsical book recycling concept relies on serendipity to keep books moving. The idea is that after being read by their initial owner, books are tagged with a unique book crossing number and released "into the wild” in random places for other people to find, read and hopefully pass back on again. Each book has it’s own online log, which people who find and read the book can add to, allowing the book to be tracked as it’s travels around the world.
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The movement apparently has 700,000+ members world wide, including plenty here in Australia. Last time I looked there were more than 200 books “in the wild" around Sydney, waiting to be found.
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Being a huge book lover, I couldn't resist checking out the book in Newtown last night, not just to see if was something I'd like to read but also to see if it had a book crossing number inside the cover. It wasn't and it didn't, so I decided to leave it where I'd found it, trusting that sooner or later some inquisitive soul would come along who would be interested in reading it.
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Sure enough, a few hours later when I was walking back to King Street the same way, I noticed it was gone. I hope whoever picked it up is enjoying it. Happy reading!
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