If you are an avid reader, you probably have a tower of books in every room of your house. What do you do when you are finished with a book? Do you stack it onto a shelf with other books or sell it to the raddi-walla? Instead of putting a book on a shelf where it will gather dust, here’s a revolutionary idea: set it free for a new reader to find. That’s the idea behind Bookcrossing — a global book club that crosses time and space. It is a reading group that knows no geographical boundaries. The books that members leave “in the wild” are free ... but it is the act of freeing books that really points to the heart of bookcrossing. The goal, simply, is to turn the whole world into one big library.
Bookcrossing began in 2001, when entrepreneur and book lover Ron Hornbaker came up with the idea of a website that could track the movements of a book across the world. Before one could say ‘Ballycumber’, the site (www.bookcrossing.com) was up and running. Ten years later, Bookcrossing has around one million members across 137 countries, who have collectively registered over seven million books. There are over 5,600 bookcrossers in India. Maharashtra has the largest number (1,400+) while Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka and Tamil Nadu come close with over 700 users in each state.
Bookcrossing is simple. You register a book on the website and get a unique Bookcrossing ID (BCID) for each book. You write this BCID on the book, along with the bookcrossing website address. Add a little post-it saying “Free book!” or something equally cheery to encourage strangers to take it. Leave the book in a public place for someone to find, offer it to a user on the website or give it away in person. The reader is encouraged to register the ‘catch’ on the website so you know where it has reached.
If you like treasure hunts, you can sign up for an email-alert when a book is released near to you. The fun is in the chase! Releasing books “into the wild” can be terribly exciting. I have left books on airplanes, in parks and on the London Underground. If you are upfront about it and don’t act like you have a suspicious package to deliver, this can be a lot of fun.
Waiting for the book to be ‘caught’ is even more thrilling. Be warned, though, that the average catch rate is less than 10 per cent. Yet people have been surprised by books turning up three or four years later, on the opposite side of the world.
‘Banyantree’ is a Chennai-based engineer passionate about Bookcrossing. Having released and caught many books, ‘Banyantree’ has discovered generosity in others and within himself.