I joined BookMooch last week. It was kind of a spur of the moment thing. Hubby and I had a brief moment where we felt motivated to Get Stuff Done Around The House (don’t worry, it didn’t last long), including clearing some bookshelf space. So I joined BookMooch, listed some books, and next thing I knew I was packing up a bunch.
I thought the fun part would be the mooching. It turns out the fun part is the mailing. It’s so much more fun than selling them to a used bookstore or donating them to the library, cuz you’re giving the books to people that you know want them. I got the biggest kick, so far, out of giving away my copy of The Postman Always Rings Twice. I have a lingering fondness for James M. Cain, whom I loved when I was 20ish. My favorites were Mildred Pierce, Double Indemnity, and a wonderful collection of short stories called The Baby in the Icebox. If you like hardboiled noir fiction, it doesn’t get much better than James M. Cain. Hoo boy!
Yeah, the mooching is a little harder. There are a couple of ways you can find books. You can search for a specific title and see if anyone has listed it, which is frustratingly needle in haystack-ish. Or you can browse by topic. Sort of. Their classification scheme is a bit… puzzling. For example, if you look under “19th century” you’ll find Flowers in the Attic. Ok, I haven’t read it since I was 13, but I’m pretty sure it neither takes place, nor was written in, the 19th century. Ditto, the [giggle] Xanth books. And even worse is the “Classics” section. While I agree that there’s no arguing with taste and one girl’s classic is another’s trash, I just can’t see how, for example, States & Regions, Grade 4 or Timmy Turtle Learns Colors or Way Too Much Information: A Fanatic’s Guide to Dawson’s Creek could be considered classics by any stretch of the imagination. Still, I’ve managed to find a few. Should arrive any day now.
Have you tried BookMooch (or similar)? What’s your experience been like?
[Update: THREE books just arrived in today's mail! Now I'm embarrassed that I posted that photo of my sloppy stack. One book in particular was so beautifully wrapped that I gave the sender some extra "charity" points. And two of them had gift-wrap under the packaging. The next ones I send will be much prettier, I promise.
So, my new books are The Eyre Affair (I know, everyone else on the planet has already read it) and I Capture the Castle. And Joey's new book is The Rock 'N Roll Book of Lists. Wheeee!]
17 Comments
Personally I like Paperbackswap.com. In the first few weeks I got rid of TONS of books. Things have slowed down now since most of the ones I have available are listed MANY times by other swappers. But I still get requests from time to time, and I’m always posting new books as I finish reading them. The only drawback – and this is true of any site – is that it’s often hard to get the “popular” books in a timely manner … the waiting lists are just so long!
Yes, I have tried bookmooch – as you know, friend. I finally cancelled one of my requests which is sad but I have so many books on my plate as it is… and if they weren’t going to respond, I didn’t want to keep bugging them. I agree that it IS fun to send!
I was worried abt the BEST way to pkg and send but I decided it wasn’t worth it. Sad, that we can’t send media post from home, tho. You DO know about media rates, I hope? a lot of people do not.
Heather, good to know it slowed down after a while. I’m afraid to post any more right now, even though I have tons I’d like to get rid of.
Friend Care, I sent all mine from the post office. Most went media mail but there were a couple that were small enough to be worth sending first class. I also sent a few overseas: Poland, Uruguay (!) and Australia.
I think I belong to Bookmooch (or is it Goodreads)? Anyway, I never check them, and I don’t own all that many books due to interlibrary loan, so I have basically nothing to give away.
Perhaps “Flowers in the Attic” is mentioned as a 19th century work because brother/sister incest was much more prevalent back then. Also, the surname “Doll” is kind of old-fashioned, don’t you think? God, those books were dumb! I should post about them. Hmmm……
I’ve belonged to bookmooch for a year now, I think. I go through fits and spurts… where I put up a book and it’s gone (happened last night) almost immediately. I’ve found that it’s easier to find classics and less-well known books there than the real popular stuff. Though sometimes I get surprised.
I’ve never even heard of these sites. But, I have a few students that I know will love to hear about them.
I really envy you reading ‘The Eyre Affair’ for the first time. I know I can go back and read it again, but it’s one of those books where the freshness really matters.
I loved hearing that–inside the brown paper, outer wrapping–others had gift wrapped the books they sent. Seeing you wrapping books and looking to your screen and labeling them and heading out to the post office — seeing the whole process of this project — was a bit exciting, and charged it with more than a mundane ‘shipping of goods’ aura. The gift wrapping says to me that others across the globe/country apparently have a similar appreciation of what they’re doing — a feeling of connecting with those to whom they send their books.
That feeling of connecting with others who share your outlook but who you didn’t know existed, isn’t that sort of central to blogging? If bookmooch is another way to get to that feeling, I’m wondering what other activities get you there? It’s a ‘given’ for me that ‘there’s nothing new under the sun’ — we’re always finding new ways to play out the same general attitudes, behaviors, etc. But if that’s so, how did people have this sense of connecting with others who have a shared interest and outlook in pre-internet times?
But also, apart from any of the above, I think anything that involves cutting up a brown paper shopping bag and re-using it, is just, somehow, fun and satisfying in a weird, quirky, creative, thrifty-vibe way. [que Sound of Music song 'Favorit Things' verse 1, line 3: http://www.stlyrics.com/lyrics/bestofbroadway-americanmusical/myfavoritethings.htm ]
I like paperbackswap. Every once in a while I like to browse what’s been posted in the last day, and pick something totally out of character for me, based on the title or description.
Their categories are pretty good, I think. Plus I like the ability to print postage right on the packaging paper, for those books over 13 oz. that you don’t want to take to the post office. Why is that pre-printed postage is less potentially dangerous to mail than stuff that you stick stamps on, anyway?
I have a bunch of obscure stuff wish listed and it’s always a nice surprise to get it. For virtually free. :)
I belong to bookins.com, which sounds quite similar. When I first signed on, I had a lot of activity on my account, but now I’m behind in reading all those wonderful books that arrived, so I haven’t been browsing around the site so much. Bookins’ indexing/search system isn’ tht hot, but if I pick a category and go that route, I find good to great books. Some of them I was looking for, others sounded interesting by their reviews, and turned out to be well worth the shipping charge.
BTW, I find that doing the postage online at http://www.usps.com is much easier than going to the P.O. You get a discount on the USPS site, plus there’s no gas expended going to the PO. You print the postage yourself, tape it on the package, and your regular mail carrier takes the package. East!
I meant to type “Easy!” Truly I did ;-)
Flowers in the Attic as 19th C? Hilarious! That was one book that sure circulated all around our middle school. Gives me shivers to think I was reading stuff like that at age 13. Yikes! I loved *I Capture the Castle* and I’m pretty sure I’m the only person alive who didn’t like *The Eyre Affair.*
Thanks for visiting my blog!
you know, I just don’t have the patience or the money to send books around (Canada Post drives me nuts), though I know it’s fun to do it, since I’ve done that through my preferred book activity site, Bookcrossing. There, you have the option of “wild releases” (which are a bit scary if you’re releasing a book you actually liked) or “controlled releases”–passing books on to friends or other bookcrossers. http://bookcrossing.com/friend/slavetowhim
One way I’ve discovered to find good books is to try to mooch more than one book at a time. After finding something I want to mooch, or after getting a hit on a wishlisted book, I always check the sender’s inventory for anything else that looks interesting. I’ve found some jewels that way.
Regarding the “19th Century” classification: This may be less about the book itself, and more about the widespread misunderstanding about which century is which. I have found numerous situations where otherwise educated people think those years from 1901 to 2000 comprised the 19th Century. After all, they start with 19, don’t they? I worked for a guest house that advertised its historic building as being built in the 18th Century: circa 1860.
This could be fodder for a whole new post – pet peeves about erroneous assertions. I know there are already whole blogs devoted to political lies, so I would narrow the category to those assertions that appear to have been inadvertent. My uncle found one the other day about President Teddy Roosevelt’s near-death experience when his horse-drawn carriage was struck “head-on” by a trolley in 1902. The collision was not head-on, and probably would have been avoided altogether if a trolley had been approaching where the carriage driver could see it coming. It was a tangential collision, sort of like my tangential comment on this post!
Chartroose, I wish you would post about them. In fact, wouldn’t it be fun to go back and re-read the whole series… And what you said about incest cracked. me. up. ;-)
Melissa, I’m finding the same, even with just a few more days of browsing. I think there is more variety there than I realized at first.
Fred, do pass it on to your students. There are a number of similar sites, too.
Ann, thanks! I’m looking forward to reading it.
Hubby, yeah, and good call on the song. :-)
Sandy, I think I looked at paperbackswap too. I can’t remember why bookmooch seemed better to me — it must have been based on some blogger’s review. Probably it’s (as hubby likes to say) half of one and six dozen of the other. It would be nice to be able to print out shipping labels. BM doesn’t have that.
Liesl, [giggle] I bet they would take the package west, too, if you asked politely. ;-) I think the problem with going to the USPS website is they don’t do media mail, which is often (though not always) cheaper than sending first class. I ride my bike to the P.O. anyway, but it would be interesting to hear how others do it.
SmallWorld, it gives me shivers too. I’m pretty sure I read it while I was away at summer camp. Yikes!
Jena, I looked at Bookcrossing too. In fact, I am thinking about trying to persuade a friend of mine who owns a shop that she should make it a crossing center… Probably a subject for a future post. :-)
RAnn, that’s a great idea. I had one person offer to “sweeten the deal” by choosing more than one from my inventory (she was overseas), which I appreciated. You get extra points without having to spend much on extra postage.
Sara, your comment cracked me up before I got past the first sentence. I bet you are right! And speaking of pet peeves, brownie points to you for saying “comprised” instead of “is comprised of.” ;-)
I’m late to this post – doing some catch-up blog-reading! I was one of the first people to join Bookmooch so I’ve had a lot of experience with it. One thing I am in the habit of doing is, whenever I hear about a good book and am putting it on my Amazon wishlist, at the same time I add it to my Bookmooch wishlist. (There’s a doodad you can add to your toolbar that makes it super easy.) Most often, the book isn’t available at that time but it’s amazing how many do become available later. It’s really interesting when I’ve long forgotten why I put the book on the list in the first place; I try to trust my earlier judgment and mooch it. It’s like receiving a book recommended by a friend only the friend was an earlier version of me, if you know what I mean.
But I find the wishlist to be the best method of finding books. It does take patience, though.