Book Swap The books you'll find at a book swap will run the gamut from campy
to classic. You can tell some books are there because people just wanted
to get rid of them. But others are clearly important to their owners,
who've contributed them to pass them on to someone else. These are the
best books.
My girlfriend and I didn't really know what to expect from the book
swap. We didn't know how many to bring, so we emptied our shelves of
books we didn't want or wanted to give away, ending up with 14
books. Some were worthwhile (like A Clockwork Orange and Pillars of
the Earth) and others were not.
We were a bit early, but after a while the people (and books) started
pouring in. People milled around the table, checking out the recent
additions and browsing for books. Amusingly, four pairs of books were
duplicates, brought by different people (The Outsider, One Who
Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, Pillars of the Earth, and
Memoirs of Geisha). After a while, people started claiming their choices and
contributors tried to pawn off the books they'd brought.
At the end of the night, we ended up with 16 new books:
How to host a book swap
As you can see, a book swap is a fun and cheap way to get some new
books to read. Here's how you can host your own:
At the end of the night, you'll probably end up with quite a few books
that nobody has claimed. These books are fair game for anyone who wants
to take them home, even if they've already taken their
share. After that, you'll probably still have extra books. I recommend
donating these books to your local library, Good Will, or a book
charity like Baltimore's Book Thing.
I recently attended a book swap hosted by some friends. A book swap is
exactly what it sounds like: you get together with a bunch of people
and exchange books. A book swap is a sort of literary stone
soup. Everyone who attends adds a little something, and the result is
greater than the sum of its parts. It's surprisingly fun and very
interesting to see what gems people dig up.
Posted at 18:58
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New EFF Members That's pretty sweet.
Well, if nothing else, it seems
the challenge has inspired some new people to join the EFF. Cory Doctrow
sent me an email:
When EFF members sign up, they have the option of giving us some free-form feedback explaining why they're joining. Several this week came on board because of your challenge!
Posted at 16:52
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