Recently, our washing machine's motherboard conked out, so M. and I have been visiting the Manoa Laundry, something we've not done for the past four years. While we were dismayed to find the laundromat sadly decrepit and a shadow of its former clean, well-lighted self, its rolling carts grimy and stripped of their laundry hangers and several of the washers and dryers broken, I chanced upon a serendipitous discovery: a cache of books, Post-its waving like banners from the covers. Emblazoned on them was the following message: "I'm free! I'm not lost. Please pick me up, read me, and help me with my journey."
Inside, I found a bookmark that directed me to the Book Crossing website. Apparently, the site has existed since April 2001. It's an old-fashioned idea--recycling books that one no longer wants--with a digital age, social-networking twist. The wonderfully sustainable premise of Book Crossing: to spread and share literary "wealth" by releasing books for free into the wild. Book emancipators register books on the website, and each book receives a unique Book Crossing ID number. Once you find a book, you have the option of contributing to an on-line journal that tracks the journey of that book, and follow the progress of the text, post-release. Very cool.
To quote Sting, "Free, free, set them free..."
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