Bookcrossing makes the whole world a library

Up until 2 months ago, I was a booklover with a serious case of hoarding. It was getting to the point of ridiculous - I had just moved to Taiwan and now, with more limited space, I was having to double shelve my books. I was running out of room and I knew that this wouldn't (more likecouldn't) stop me from buying more books. Then it happened. One of the biggest epiphanies of my life, a major conversion - you could compare it to a "born again" moment: my aunt introduced me to bookcrossing.

Oh, sure, at first there was resistance: "You want me to what?! Give away my books? To random people?!" and denial: "I couldn't possibly do that, it's just not me!" but the sight of my groaning bookshelves and the thought of not being able to buy books because I wouldn't have anywhere to put them spurred me to action. "Fine!" I thought "Possibly there are a few books on there that I've read and won't ever want to read again.... Maybe."

After about 2 minutes I realised I had pulled about 10 books off my shelf that I had categorised "Never going to read that again" or "Hmm, what is that book doing on my shelf?!" Maybe there really was something here. Maybe I could clear some space on my beleaguered shelves for future purchases. I plonked down in front of my laptop with this pile of books and before I knew it I had registered myself and the books.

So what is bookcrossing anyway, you might be wondering? The Concise Oxford Dictionary defines bookcrossing as "the practice of leaving a book in a public place to be picked up and read by others, who then do likewise.” But as a short search of the site soon showed me, actually there is a lot more to bookcrossing than just this. The site also provides the forum for those a little shy of leaving their beloved books in public places to share books with others through either direct swaps, known as RABCKs (Random Acts of Book Crossing Kindness) or through bookrings or bookrays – a kind of extended, travelling bookclub where one book travels from one person to the next, all over the world.

The best thing about bookcrossing for me is the tracking aspect of it - every book is tracked through the website. A book that has been registered on the website is given a bookcrossing ID number (BCID) which is written in the front cover of the book. The person releasing the book then makes a journal entry about the book, saying what they thought of it, what their plans are for it and give it a rating out of 10. The book is then released, either in the “wild” - a public place such as a cafe, second-hand bookstore or park bench, or through a “controlled release” as a RABCK or as a bookring or ray. When the book is found or the intended recipient receives it, the releaser is notified by email when they make a journal entry – and so the record continues!

Within minutes I was seriously hooked. Now, after four weeks of it I have released 2 books into the "wild" at the Community Services Center in TianMu, Taipei and sent out 4 other books on controlled releases. This week I'm setting up my first attempt at a bookray. As if this weren't enough, I'm also trying to make the library of donated books in the Community Services Center an Official Book Crossing Zone so I can get more people in Taipei's international community involved in bookcrossing. With the amount of expats that come through there, just imagine where some of the books could end up!

Once my library dreams were constricted to just my own set of shelves but now I'm coming to embrace a bookcrossing motto - that the whole world is a library and if you truly love a book you set it free. If you find a bookcrossing book out there - check it out and sign up. It's a serious fun!

Image credit: www.bookcrossing.com

What does your bookshelf say about you?

I recently stumbled across this article about people and their bookshelves on the bookcrossing forums. At first I was delighted, then somewhat disturbed, particularly by the following quote:

Books aren't essential - you don't need them to sit on or eat off (unless you are a student). If you want to read, or check a reference, there are libraries.

I struggled past my feelings of indignation to see where she was going with this whole idea. It seemed, in the end, that she had concluded that the reason people keep books on their shelves is to show people how well read they are (or, as she puts it, claim to be). Why else would people keep books on shelves rather than in boxes?

Being an avid reader and a lover of books I felt this premise to be somewhat offensive, or at least ill-thought out. Why do I keep books on shelves and not in boxes? Er, for ease of access of course. These are books I keep because I want to read them, sooner or later, and I'd rather not be scrabbling around in the bottom of a box trying to find said book. Plus I have an awful memory and I need to be reminded of which books I actually own.

Plus, isn't a shelf of books an enjoyable sight, as evidenced by the wealth of options to fake well-stocked bookshelves she listed like the fake books and the bookshelf wallpaper? Who wouldn't want to look at a shelf of books? Well, I suppose those sorts of people ARE out there but since this is a book blog, I don't suppose they're bothering to read this so I'm safe. But in all seriousness, concluding that keeping books on shelves is purely for the display of ones reading prowess missed the far more interesting aspect that this article only lightly touched on.

I love looking at my books as it's tracking a journey in my life. I can see the novels I studied for my favourite undergrad literature classes; I can see books given to me as presents; I can see books that I read in a particular location and time in my life... Books are a part of my life. So when I go around to another person's house and look at their bookshelves, it makes me feel like I'm getting to know them a little better. Although some people might tell you I'm a book snob (and my reading tastes would rather suggest that so I understand) I certainly wouldn't judge another person on their bookshelf. A bookshelf stocked to brimming with well-thumbed lighter fiction is, in my view, a far more pleasant sight than a bookshelf only a few unread copies of "literature". Books are meant to be read and enjoyed. I can far better connect with someone that has bothered to read stuff on their shelf rather than just put it there because they think it looks good.

In answer, finally, to my own question - I wonder what my bookshelf says about me. I expect it reflects that while I appreciate some of the classics (Wuthering Heights is just fantastic) I definitely have a preference for contemporary literature. And yes, it might give you the impression I'm a book snob but actually I don't make any apologies for that. I know what I like and don't particularly fancy wasting time or reading energy on books that don't tickle my fancy. So many books and so little time and all that.

Take a sneaky peek at your own shelves. What do you think they say about you?

Some of my favourite sentences: Part III

I've been very re-miss on keeping this up to date, but that doesn't mean I haven't come across some fantastic turns of phrase, truisms or use of the English language.

One that I wanted to include here is not for its beauty but for how true it is. If you're a booky type like me, you'll know.

"Bookish people, who are often maladroit people, persist in thinking they can master any subtlety so long as it has been shaped into acceptable expository prose."

Carol Shields

Unless

My own personal marathon challenge

What started as a joke has now become a serious challenge. When a friend of mine wrote on Facebook that she had finished a Rubik's Cube and now needed another challenge, little did I know she would take me up on the offer when I suggested she should read Tolstoy's War and Peace. Neither did I think that she'd rope me into joining her!

I was given War and Peace by my boyfriend (now husband) one Christmas several years ago. I had told him that this book was on my all-time "Gotta read that before I die" list so he thoughtfully gave it to me so I could get started. I never did. The 1444 pages seemed insurmountable so I kept deferring it. One day, I kept saying, one day......

Now it seems that 'one day' has now arrived and what better way could you hope to take on such a literary marathon but with someone else. A training buddy, someone to motivate you and spur you along when the pages seem too many and the words blur in front of your eyes. Suddenly, War and Peace seems less like a marathon and more like what it really is: a book I always wanted to read. Yes, it's nearly three inches thick and that's the small print version, but now it seems possible. Starting today, I'm commencing my War and Peace marathon.

I'll let you know how I go.

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She does it again... in 2010!

Eat, Pray, Love by Elizabeth Gilbert was, without a doubt, one of my favourite books of 2009 (and there's still 4 months of reading left to go!) In fact, I would say it's a firm contender for my Top Ten reads of all time. It really was that good and with 57 weeks in the number one spot on the New York Times non-fiction list, I think it's a safe bet to assume I'm not the only one who thinks this way.

This book looks at her journey towards a second try at marriage with Jose (Felipe from EPL) - something she never anticipated after the devastating unravelling of her first marriage which sparked off the epic journey that was EPL. Given the things that life and God threw at her in EPL, Gilbert might have known better than to say out loud that she would never marry again, but she did and yet again life and God trumped her with circumstance at border control. The only way for Jose/Felipe to ever enter the USA again was for them to marry... and this book was the result.

Off the back of her MASSIVE success with EPL, I suspect many people will be watching her closely to see if it was all just a fluke. Personally, I think this kind of scrutiny is just, if you will excuse the phraseology, bollicks. This woman can write, as she has amply proven, not only with EPL but with three other published books not to mention a slew of journalistic and other writings. To treat her as an overnight success that might not be able to replicate her previous success is just insulting. And mean. I am firmly in her corner and I am sure this next book will be equally as fantastic as EPL in its own wonderful way.

So, with the follow-up book to EPL coming out in 2010 and the the movie version coming out in 2011, Elizabeth Gilbert fans like myself have a lot to look forward to! It's going to be a great couple of years.

And so my obsession with this author will continue... ;)

Elizabeth Gilbert on nurturing creativity

This woman is my new guru. Seriously. I'm only 123 pages into Eat, Pray, Love but I'm hooked and entranced and inspired by what she's saying. And then I saw this video. She make me want to write more and makes me believe I can do it.

Ole to her!

The day my library dreams came crashing down...

Something occurred to me the other day. I was half way through unpacking my boxes of things I had shipped from NZ to Taiwan and the unthinkable was happening. I was running out of shelf space. And fast. I had brought nearly all of my beloved books nearly 9000 kilometres and I wasn't sure if I'd be able to fit them all in! The shelves had looked so roomy when we first bought the apartment, with the previous owner's stuff all gone and only space, space and more space stretching out invitingly in front of us.

Then I properly moved here and realised a few things.

First of all, I'm married now so that means 50/50 share of everything. There are two sets of shelves, one filled with my precious books, the other is filled with miscellaneous junk belonging to his nibs. But fair is fair. It's an equal partnership after all, and it would be completely immoral and awful of me to covet his shelf space.... wouldn't it...?

Second of all, Taiwan apartments are a whole lot smaller than New Zealand houses. You don't have the ability to spread out - at all. If you leave something in the lounge I swear it takes up 300% more space than it would have done in the average NZ home. So a place for everything and everything in it's place and all that malarky. Which means all of my books need to be housed on their shelves at all times except perhaps the one I am currently reading which might find a cubby hole next to the bed.

For the first time in my entire book hoarding career, I am being forced to 'double shelve'.

And it was the necessitation of this double shelving that lead me to my next crashing conclusion: I was going to have to be way more responsible about my future book buying. No longer were the days of browsing around and picking up a book willy nilly just because I fancied adding it to my collection. Oh no. We have fallen on hard times here, people. Hard times with no spare shelves. If I want to buy a book now I'm going to have to think carefully. It may eventually even come to the "one book in and another one out" policy.

On those lines I've already weeded out about 10 books that I know I will never read again (or haven't read and never intend to - like the Barbara Taylor Bradford that was given to me as a gift in Whitcoulls one day, its just not my kind of read) that I'm planning to gift to the Taipei expat community centre in a Bookcrossing kind of way (more info on Bookcrossing here). Which will be kind of fun but to be honest, I'm far to attached to ever give most of my books away. I've bought them with the intention of keeping them as much loved members of my paperback family and the thought of releasing most of them isn't one I'm prepared to entertain right now.

But then again - who knows. As more and more excellent books are published and I get itchy fingers in the bookstore.... well, they're going to have to go somewhere, and unless I acquire some carpentry skills out of nowhere then somethings going to have to give.

That, or I stage a hostile take-over of those other shelves!

The tragedy of defeat...

Photo credit: Here

I just watched Revolutionary Road (2008, dir. Sam Mendes). The credits haven't even finished rolling yet - I just had to respond to it immediately.

I hadn't realised what this film was really about before I watched it as I hadn't read any reviews or read the book on which it was based (written by Richard Yates, 1961) but I'd known from the moment it was released in the movies I wanted to see it, somehow I knew it was my kind of film. And I wasn't wrong. It was fantastically acted, the storyline was superb and the characterisation was amazing. I like real characters like Frank and April, those who make mistakes and have serious flaws. The kind of people you believe in.

But I'm not writing this as a review although if my word means anything: see it if you haven't or better yet read the book. Also, stop reading here as the following contains spoilers.

I'm writing this because I somehow identify in a strange way with April. To be in a rut so deep you can barely see out of is a horrifying fate for someone with spirit and dreams. The only thing worse than this fate is to see a ray of hope shining over the top of the rut (more like a trench, to be honest) and grasp hold of it, pin your dreams to it and see it as the means of escape from the boredom and unhappiness stretching out in front of you.... only to have that hope extinguished. To have seen what might have been and been so close to change, the change you so desperately need to survive another day of your life, only to have the door slammed in your face by the one person you thought was on your side.

In April I see something I fear: that the person she loved most in the world had the ability to break her. All because he was too scared to try something different. He entrapped her, denied her the thing she most wanted - escape. He snuffed out her dreams and there was nothing she could do about it - except the most tragic and final solution possible. Frank allowed himself to be defeated by his own fear and in allowing himself to be defeated he inflicted on April a life she couldn't bear to live.

To be so completely and totally trapped within your marriage and your life is a terrifying prospect and one that is no longer as common to many women, thanks to the advent of feminism - at least in the Western world. However, I don't think that this means this story is outdated and neither do I think the message behind it is less imperative than it was when the book was released nearly 50 years ago. I think that the key message is that living a life which is unfulfilled and being surrounded by mediocrity is only one small step away from a sort of death. Accepting mediocrity and accepting not being fulfilled is defeat - the defeat of your spirit. If you have the ability and wherewithal to make a change, the ability to really do something about your life but you fail to do so because of fear or a lack of inner strength to just get on and do it is signalling you've given up. You're out of the game. That's when life ceases to be a life and becomes merely an existence.

Making that change doesn't have to be big. You don't have to move to Paris. You just need to grab life with both hands and give it a shake and see what comes out. So long as whatever that is makes you happy, then you're alive. If you give up on life it seems to me that you may as well be dead - cos you almost certainly are on the inside.

Now THAT is impressive...

Photo credit: Here

I was listening to a podcast that I have recently discovered, Books on the Nightstand, this morning when something they were discussing piqued my attention. A British lady named Louise Brown, a 91 year old pensioner, has made newspapers for the extraordinary achievement of borrowing and reading nearly 25,000 library books in her lifetime to date. She takes out 12 a week. A week! She's nearly exhausted her local library's collection of large print books! What a legend.

Suddenly my reading load seemed piffly by comparison and I started to wonder why. I mean, I love reading. I adore books. You may have noticed this very subtle fact from the content of my blog and if you know me personally you surely know me to be addicted to the printed word.

I concluded, after some reflection, that I just don't dedicate as much time as I should to reading (and by "should" I mean "want to"). I used to spend hours and hours reading as a kid but then, as I got older and invariably busier, I realise that reading has slipped down my priorities list without me noticing. I just haven't set aside the time I would like to for it. A big distraction for me has been the internet - Facebook, reading news articles, catching up on emails and googling random questions that pop into my head (like why do people yell "Geronimo!!" when they jump out of a plane?) All well and good, really but it has seriously cut into my beloved reading time.

So! I'm taking action. My challenge to myself is to use the internet less and do a bit more reading and try and get back into the habit of reaching for my books first when I have some spare time rather than turning on the laptop. I'm nearly two thirds of the way through Falling Man by Don DeLillo and hope to finish that by tomorrow or early next week and then I'll probably be working on another post 9/11 book (the thesis looms after all!) which is exciting.

So to all my dear books, I know I've been a bit remiss of late and not picked you up as often as I could have but I'm a reformed woman. And you have Louise Brown to thank for that!