Book Lovers Day is August 9: So Why Am I The Last To Know?

Alert: August 9 is Book Lovers Day.

Depending on who you speak to, it's called National Book Lovers Day or World Book Lovers Day. But who cares? Love books every day!

Anyway, Book Things was a great resource when I asked "who," so check out the blog. And share books.

I am a huge sharer of books. I buy them, scatter them around like apple seeds, hand them over to my friends, co-workers — and offer unsolicited suggestions to readers everywhere. (With the latter, I try to be polite and non-obtrusive, and I retreat at the first sign of "get out of my face, I'm shopping here!")

To make up for the 2012 lapse, I shall scatter a few more books into the wind.

And I shall be prepared for 2013!

Releasing Books into the Wild

I buy books for a few reasons. Sometimes I want to read the books, and other times I want to share them with my bookish friends.

Occasionally I duplicate what's in my library, and those books are given to friends and the Lunchroom Lending Library at work.

Then there are the books I purchase because they sound too delicious to pass up and, frankly, someone needs to read them.

My friend Carole is a trouper, reading quite a few titles in the last category. She was unfortunate enough to read part of Plague Dogs, a book that was so gut-wrenching I not only asked her to stop reading it, but to return the book so I could recycle it. (That is the only book I have doomed to that fate, and I'm not sorry.) On the flip side, she read The Heroines, a novel in which an owner of a bed and breakfast encounters the heroines of English literature. I can't wait to read it!

With used bookstores and thrift stores in my path, I find many books that simply need to be shared. After a while, even Carole has to reign me in. So, what is a reader to do?

Look to BookCrossing.

I was told about BookCrossing by a fellow reader at last year's Fall for the Book Festival. BookCrossing takes book-sharing to a new level: readers give books individual codes when they share them so fellow readers with access to the Internet can chart the book's movement when they encounter them. Sure, it requires people to play along, but it costs nothing. (Okay, I purchased stickers for the books, but I could have done it for nothing.)

Here's the cool part: you put them in places where people will find them and take them home to read. (That's called "releasing them into the wild.") You also can give a book to a friend (a "controlled release").

I thought it was a lovely idea, in theory. Then I went to my local Potbelly Sandwich Shop without a book, and discovered the shop had a bookcase. I borrowed a book — and decided I needed to pay back the book deities who placed a book in my path when I needed it.

Last week, I took a handful of books, coded them and sprinkled them around the area. A few went to the gyms at the nearby university, others went to the library "free book" box, and even more wound up at the pool around the corner. I put one at the community center. I think David still has one for his gym.

I am excited.

Have you tried BookCrossing? Did you like it? Have you ever found a BookCrossing book? (I did once and left it in its natural habitat for a reader to find.) Tell me!

Communal Reading: There's Nothing Like It!

We already have established that I'm a compulsive reader. Nothing is safe from my eyes. I would read an aspirin bottle over and over if it was my only source of reading material. (Perish the thought!)

Now, the question is, "What brings me joy when I read?"

I discovered it this weekend as I picked up the book Fluke. Carole reviewed it and loved it, and I thought I'd read it, too. I had just finished Julia's Chocolates and posted my revisit of the book to compliment Carole's review. As we talked about the books she had read that were perched around my house, I watched her peruse two books she was interested in starting: Under the Tuscan Sun and A Great and Terrible Beauty.

"Tell me when you start that one!" I said as I picked up the latter title from the pool table. "I'll start it, too, and we'll read it together." Then I sighed. "I miss that."

What brings me joy when I read: sharing.

Oh, I'm not that altruistic. The act of reading is very pleasurable for me and I'd do it alone. I have. But how much better to share the discovery of a book with a friend?

Carole and I anxiously await the next book by Jasper Fforde or Geraldine Brooks (to name just a couple of our faves). When we get the new book in hand, we choose the day we start, and that's when we crack the spine on the book. It's great to compare where we are and what did we think when — well, you get the gist. I love the conversations that begin, "Where are you?" No salutation, no lead — just the meat (or, for us vegetarians, the tofu) of the conversation.

There are times when one of us sallies forth into the water, then waves our companion into the water. There are times when one of us should. (Or not. Need I mention The Last Templar?) Then there are times when the sand and surf are perfect and we splash in together, jellyfish and horseshoe crabs be darned!

I love when Carole sallies forth. She waves me into some great treats. I love to do that for her, too.

I also love to toss in some unknowns ("It looked good" or "The jacket is intriguing" or "It won the Costa Book Award in 2007, and Geraldine Brooks has a favorable blurb on the cover"). One never knows if the title will pan out, or if the blurbs were more mercenary than honest. Sometimes she loved it and I couldn't find a hook. Other times Carole can't get past the sloth on page 50 (if it's big enough, who could?).

But as nice as the quiet, solitary read is, nothing quite compares to the phone call that starts in the middle:
"Hello?"
"Oh, my stars, I can't believe how Jack finally told Mary about the painting!"
"I know!"