Moocher

A while back, Windy found an excellent book swapping site called BookMooch. It’s literally that, a book swapping site. Not a dime changes hands (except between you and the post office). In short, you get a point for sending someone a book they request, and you lose a point when you request a book from someone. It is very cool, kind of like a babysitting co-op. You also get 1/10^th of a point for each book you list and 1/10^th of a point everytime you leave feedback for someone who sends you a book. If you send a book outside of the U.S., you get three points (and you lose three points when you mooch a book from overseas).

I don’t know how we accumulated the hundreds and hundreds of books we did, but we can’t take them with us on the boat, so I’ve been slowly getting rid of them over the past couple years. Everytime I’ve come up with a stack I am ready to part with, I list on Amazon those that are worth something, and give the rest away. Since discovering BookMooch, I’ve allowed folks to mooch about two dozen books I’d have given away. It’s gratifying to send these books to those who are eager to read them. Tomorrow a paperback copy of Thoreau’s Walden heads to Greece and Steinbeck’s Of Mice and Men is off to Canada.

Many of my sailing books have already been mooched, but I still have titles available from the Pardeys, the Roths, and Tania Aebi—mooch ‘em quick.

--MR