I made my first bookcrossing release this morning. For those who are not familiar with bookcrossing, you should check out their site. My first encounter with them was as the finder of a book. I was in the mood for a semi-trashy novel but didn�t want to pay actual money for one, so I decided to head to the Harold Washington Library to check out a copy of David Schickler�s Kissing in Manhattan, which someone in my bookgroup had recommended to me. (I actually thought the book was rather dull, so please don�t consider this an endorsement of any kind). I headed into the stacks and looked on the shelf where the book should be. The library copy was out, but there in its place was a paperback preview copy of the book. I found the bookcrossing label and discovered that not only could I take the book home, but I didn�t have to stand in the horrendously long checkout lines. Hot damn. Just the strip search, er �exit security check� for me!

I have a very hard time getting rid of books. I am not generally speaking a packrat, but books have always had more meaning to me then that. They are my history. They are possibilities, knowledge, experience of a sort. My husband used to give me a really hard time about my large collection of children�s books, nearly all relics from my own childhood. Now that we actually have a child, he doesn�t bother me about it so much anymore, but still the books easily get out of control. Both of us need a lot of reference materials for our work. Additionally, because of my husband�s line of work, we are on several publishers� lists, and get many free preview copies, frequently of things we are not particularly interested in. But I always think I might read them, and so they worm their way onto the poor, overworked bookshelves.

It is time to give those poor shelves a break (and make some room for the cartload of books on their way from alibris. I started slowly, with the three worst books on my shelves, books I was 100% sure neither I nor anyone I know would be interested in reading again. But I actually had fun doing it. Perhaps now it�s time to unload my copy of Frommer�s Ireland 1994 (but I plan to go back�someday) and the second copy of Don DeLillo�s Mao II (but is one copy really enough?). Maybe even Kissing in Manhattan.

Bookcrossing is perhaps less lucrative than hawking my books at Myopic as I used to do, but it is actually more fun. And come to think of it, I don�t think it is less lucrative. I failed to take into account the true danger of selling one�s books at Myopic � the total impossibility of not spending your quick cash on still more books. (But I�m sure there�s some room for them � maybe if I just slide the microwave a little to the left�)

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