Read & Release

  Sunday morning started with nothing out of the ordinary—a cup of joe, a shower and a shave.  My dad was in town for the WAC Tournament, and we decided to grab some breakfast before he left.  As we walked into a popular Sunday morning brunch spot on Lohman, there, under the menu board, something caught my eye.  It was a book by Sharon Weinberger called “Imaginary Weapons,” and stuck to the dust jacket was a note that read, “I’m free!  I’m not lost!  Please pick me up, read me, and help me with my journey!”

  It’s possible that you have seen these wayward books laying on coffee shop tables and park benches around town—different titles, each touting its freeness in its own way, and each directing its finder to a website called BookCrossing.com.

  Like a kid who found a treasure map tucked into a knotty tree in his backyard, I was intrigued.  After breakfast I went home, logged on to BookCrossing.com, and looked up my new book.  It had been “released” that same morning—exactly where I found it—by an avid BookCrossing member who has left 159 books lying around the City of Crosses.

  Book Crossing is, in its unique way, a social networking site for people who share one common belief: books should be shared, not owned.  More than half a million members around the world, from Ireland to Iceland, Angola to Vietnam, are leaving books in conspicuous places to be found by other interested readers.  I was startled to learn that New Mexico has almost 2,000 active Book Crossing members, and Las Cruces has more than 200.

  The site deserves a few moments of any book-lover’s attention, as there are only a few features that I’ll be able to tell you about.  The most interesting is the ability to track every book that has passed through a user’s hands…forever.  Sure, books go missing.  Someone finds it and doesn’t record it.  But curiosity gets the best of most people, who end up at BookCrossing.com to see—as I did—what tales the treasure they now possess has to tell.

  The most fun feature of the site allows users to go hunting for books left around their city by other Book Crossing members.  For example, 14 books have been “released” in Las Cruces in the last month, with no record of having been claimed, according to the site.  From coffee shops and convenience stores to the NMSU Recital Hall, there are books “in the wild” that are waiting to be found.  If you’re looking for a way to pass a Saturday, you may want to go hunting for a few that pique your interest.  Or take a few books off your shelf at home, register them at BookCrossing.com, and plant them around town to be found by someone else.

  And perhaps the best part is that it’s completely free.  Book Crossing doesn’t charge for anything except for the optional bookplates, bookmarks and sticky notes that you can include in books that you release.  But the site also includes free, downloadable “.pdf files” that allow you to print your own.

  If you love books, and believe in karma—even just a little—BookCrossing.com is a site you’re gonna love.

-From Pulse
   March 15, 2007