If you love a book, ‘release' it

By Heidi Bell Gease, Journal Staff Writer | Thursday, January 16, 2003

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If you love your books, set them free.

That's the idea behind BookCrossing, an Internet-based book club that celebrates what it calls "random acts of literacy."

BookCrossing encourages readers to give away books they have read (or don't plan to read) so others can enjoy them.

"Our goal, simply, is to make the whole world a library," the club's home page says.

That appeals to readers such as Martie Bohls of Rapid City, a BookCrosser who has "released" 25 books since joining the free club in 2001.

"I have way too many books," she explained. "And I never read books twice."

Many people pass good books to friends when they are done reading them or leave used paperbacks in airports. What makes BookCrossing fun is that the Web site tracks where a "released" book goes, from reader to reader, state to state, even country to country.

The most traveled BookCrossing tomes include one that so far has made the rounds of about 19 readers in Italy. Another entry, "About a Boy" by Nick Hornby, began its BookCrossing journey in Calgary, Alberta, was mailed to Toronto, Ontario, read on a flight to San Francisco, passed to a BookCrosser in Modesto, Calif., then mailed to a reader in Michigan.

Here's how it works: BookCrossing members register a book online, then label it with a registration number and instructions for the finder to log onto the BookCrossing Web site at www.bookcrossing.com.

Then, the BookCrosser either "releases" the book somewhere — leaving it behind at a coffee shop, say, or on a park bench — or gives it to a friend or fellow BookCrosser. Ideally, the person who finds or "catches" the book will go online to record where he or she found it and how well the finder liked it before releasing it again.

Software developer Ron Hornbaker and his wife, Kaori, launched the movement in April 2001, having enjoyed such sites as "Where's George?" which tracks U.S. currency by serial number. One look at their book collection sparked the idea of tracking books the same way.

Less than two years later, the Web site gets 23 million hits per month. Nearly 80,000 people worldwide have joined the club. That includes 90 people in South Dakota, 19 of whom are in the Black Hills area.

Bohls, whose BookCrosser name is "keycollect," leads the list of local releases. She has dropped books ranging from Tony Hillerman's "Hunting Badger" (at Evans Plunge in Hot Springs) to Kathleen J. Reichs' "Death du Jour" (at B&L Bagels) to Cleveland Amory's "The Best Cat Ever" (in the basement of Our Lady of Perpetual Help Cathedral).

So far, none of her books has been "caught" by a stranger, at least not one who has logged the book online.

"I'm waiting for that," Bohls said. "You hope people are reading them whether they log them or not."

Jon Dougherty of Black Hawk learned about BookCrossing while browsing a Web site on geocaching, a different sort of treasure hunt that involves using hiking boots and a global-positioning system to find sites that may contain a logbook and a stash of Happy Meal toys.

BookCrossing "looked like an amusing pastime," Dougherty, who goes by the Web name "Tickbait," said. He has combined the two hobbies, releasing one book, "Cooking Most Deadly" by Joanne Pence, at a geocache near Keystone.

That book came from a Missouri BookCrosser who wanted to release books in all 50 states. When it comes to releasing his own editions, Dougherty will be selective.

"Most of the books on my site bookshelf are personal favorites that I most likely will not be releasing," he said. "But I always have a dozen or so paperback mysteries sitting around that I'll place when I get the time, possibly into other geocache locations around the Hills."

BookCrossing includes some of everything. The nearly 211,000 registered books range from children's books to science-fiction series, from best-selling novels to biographies, from classic literature to "Far Side" cartoon collections.

Members can also post online reviews without ever releasing a book. One Rapid City user, who goes by "Cyber-Christ," has recorded 422 books but released none.

BookCrossing enthusiasts say passing on free books is not a big threat to businesses that sell books. They say that most people who trade books also buy books and might seek out books they read about on BookCrossing. Others will buy books just to release them, not wanting to part with their own dog-eared copies of "Walden" or "The Grapes of Wrath."

At any rate, users say, more people reading is a good thing. And as the Web site says, that's good karma.

Contact reporter Heidi Bell Gease at 394-8419 or heidi.bell@rapidcityjournal.com