a mysterious book...

I have completely forgotten to mention something...

Last Sunday, Slawek and I took Angie and went for a stroll along the River Thames in London. We were close to the Hay's Galleria when we decided to stop and have a drink at one of the bars by the river . We sat at a table outside and noticed that somebody had left a book there. Our first thought was to give it to a waiter or hand it over to bartenders. We thought that somebody had lost it and would probably come back to look for it. Then Slawek spotted a white label on the book's cover. The inscription revealed: 

CONGRATULATIONS!! 

You have just found a BOOKCROSSING Book! 

Look inside...

A Bookcrossing Book? I thought, what the hell is it? 

We opened the book and there was another white label that read:

I'M NOT LOST!

I'm a travelling book!

Please pick me up, read me and then give me a ride somewhere else.

You can find out where I've been and let the world know you found me, all by visiting the website and entering the BCID number (the number was written on the book's side with a black marker)

Only then we started understanding what was going on. Basically, average people (like me and you:) ) can release their books "into the wild" and then follow their journeys online, see where they have been, who has read them and how far they have gone.

I found out that the idea itself was created in 2001. A year later, it attracted huge media attention and became a very popular and widespread phenomenon. There is more than 770.000 registered BookCrossers who have registered and released over 5.5 million books worldwide!!! 

It's the first time that I have actually come across something like that... I'm wondering why I haven't heard about this project before... I find it rather fascinating... it is like writing a letter, putting it into a glass bottle and sending it off into the ocean... kind of romantic... :))

The book we have found, Jeffrey Deaver's Manhattan is My Best, was not very interesting, though. I didn't really like it and found it a bit boring and dull... Nevertheless, I think the idea is fantastic and I will definitely release some of my books into the wild :)

Visit www.bookcrossing.com for more info on how to share your books with the world :)