Book Sharing

[Julie Mor]

I read a lot - books, magazines, whatever I get my hands on. And one of the things I've read is how cruisers do book exchanges when in port. When and if that time comes, I'll be a willing participant. My library will come with us when we pull up the land anchor and I look forward to sharing.

The other day I decided I would put my name, boat name, home port and date I read the book on the inside cover before I pass it on and encourage the next recipient to do the same. It seems to add some history to the experience of sharing.

Has anyone ever done this?

[WindwardPrinces]

I haven't, but it's a great idea.

[Hudson Force]

Occasionally I pick up a book at a cruiser's exchange spot that has a book name or cruiser's comment inside, but not often. Some of the marinas that host exchange libraries will stamp their books with the marina name. Then, there are also plenty of used book exchange opportunities that are near the cruiser's path, but not exclusively used by those on boats.

By far, the most common location to find book exchange opportunities are at the coin laundries that are within or near marinas.

I have a huge supply of "cruiser cards" or "boat cards". I don't really use them for much of anything except those infrequent times when I need to leave someone a phone or email contact. Maybe I should start leaving one in my used books as a complimentary bookmark.

[colemj]

Almost every marina or place where cruisers gather have a library full of "take and give" books. Books are also brought to potlucks, etc.

Often times we have seen other cruiser's names, boat, etc written in them. Kind of gives them some history like you suggest.

The other things that give these exchange books history are the mold and mildew, bad smell, cockroaches eggs, small "book bugs" (I don't know what these are called), and lots of other gross things.

More and more, people are exchanging whole digital libraries of ebooks. We pretty much refuse to take on board real books anymore.

Be aware of one thing about book exchanges - if you don't like serial detective novels, romance novels and all the other crap mass produced today, you will find the pickings extremely thin to non-existant. If you bring other types of books to be offered, you will most likely see them still there next time you come around.

Mark