I love what people come up with to combine technology with daily life. I was reading a forum post on geocaching.com about a murder mystery novel involving geocaching called “Cache for Corpses”. In the thread, someone mentioned that they put the book up on bookcrossing.com. I decided to take a look at the site and see what it was all about, and I loved the idea!
People register books with bookcrossing.com, print a label identifying them as a bookcrossing book, and then leave the book at coffee shops, at train stations, on park benches, or other places people would see them. People then come by, grab the book, read it, and post a “journal entry” on the site about finding the book, a book review, or anything else relevant to the book discovery. I love reading books, and I think it’s great that this idea combines my two current hobbies: geocaching and reading. One of the locations you can leave the book in on the site is in geocaches, which adds another link to their combination. I just registered my first book and left it in a geocache down the road from me. This is actually the first bookcrossing book in Elmira, which is kind of a bummer. I have to travel over 30 miles to find a bookcrossing book in my area. Next time I go somewhere though, I’ll be sure to pick up a book. The idea is right up my alley.
I have been trying to read more, so I’ve been trying to get to Barnes and Noble whenever I could to read some books. Bookcrossing.com lets you register books for your “private collection” that you do not intend to share. I have been using it to write short book reviews. I’m having a blast.
Bookcrossing.com mentions a site where you leave a camera behind, people take it to far off places, take pictures, and then the film gets developed, put online, and you can see where it’s been. That’s the next thing I’m going to try. It sounds like fun!
