Cruisersforum Book Exchange?

[sneuman]

I have several books that would be of interest to others on the forum, but limited space (I'm liveaboard). On the other hand, I am always wanting more reading material.

Is there any interest in a cruisersforum book exchange? One member would send a book in exchange for another.

If so, I have the following to offer:

Fastnet, Force 10, John Rousmaniere
Once is Enough, Miles Smeeton
Alone Through the Roaring Forties, Vito Dumas
Sailing Around the World Alone, Joshua Slocum
The Letter of Marque, Patrick O'Brian

I'm interested in just about anything nautical. In particular, if anyone wants to part with The Thirteen Gun Salute by O'Brian, that's next up on my list of the series.

[GordMay]

A book exchange is a great idea, though shipping (& costs) could be problematic.
I always operated a book exchange when we cruised.
We had a “take one - leave one” bookshelf at Club Thunderball.
I’d often circulate through an anchorage, with a box of books for trade. Not only did my (everyone's) library turn over, but I met lots of nice people, I might otherwise not have.
On those occasionally unpleasant gloomy nights, we might also play an Audio Book over the VHF. It’d take several nights (1 - 1.5 hrs) to get through a book. Obviously, you can’t tie-up a working channel in a “civilized” anchorage.

[sneuman]

Gord,

Apparently you're the only one that thinks it's a good idea. I figured postage would even out in a quid pro quo exchange. There are a few classics on my list, but I rarely reread books, so why keep them? Anyway, I'm surprised no takers.

[dacust]

I do mainly audio books.

For the best deal I've ever seen:
AudioBooksForFree.com

They have a 10 DVD set of over 600 books in MP3 format for only $100!!

Less than half are actually full length books, lots of short stories, so below when I say "books" I mean different titles.

I got the (then 9 DVD) set a few years ago and am just now over halfway through. Some of the files are corrupt and a few out of order, but for the price it's great. It's almost all public domain classics, so mostly good reading. Lots of old sea stories. Almost all are read by 3 or 4 British actors and their performances range between OK to very good, depending on actor and book tone.

I also check out audio books from the library and rip them for my mp3 player. I can get about 100 "books" from the DVDs, or 30-50 full length books from the library loaded on my 8gb player.

BTW: You can download books for free off this site, but for me the quality of the free ones are so bad it's just not worth it. And to download all 600 "books" would take so long, the $100 just seems cheap.

OK, sounds like an ad, but it's just a great deal. So, that's why I'm not too interested in a book swap. But Gord's method of going boat-to-boat is a good one. Good excuse to say "Hey!"

-dan

[jzk]

It would be a great idea because most cruising books aren't readily available at the library and many are $50 or so.

[Zach]

I like the idea, I'll do some hunting around and see what all I have gathering dust.