Free words for all!

I’m a book crosser. Not a cross dresser, nor a professional lollipop man – a book crosser. I give books away. Loads of them. Usually I pop them into one of those industrial bin things with Oxfam or something written on the front; but sometimes I print off a label from the internet, stick it on the inside front cover and leave the book somewhere public for the world to find. Share the wealth. Pay it forward. I read a book, I like a book, I leave it for someone else to enjoy, safe in the knowledge that my kind deed will be reciprocated in the future – literary karma.

The problem is, and I have to admit this has slightly disillusioned me, - I have never seen anyone else leave any books anywhere. I’m doing all the giving and none of the receiving. And to make matters worse not one of my tracked books has reappeared on the web site. They have all just disappeared into the ether.


It’d be ok if I could make myself believe that people did pick them up who would appreciate them – that their journey continues in silent, anonymous, perpetual motion. But an image of an over-zealous cleaner grabbing them along with three empty harp cans and dumping them into a bin bag which is then transferred to one of those XL wheelie bins before being chewed into an apathetic truck and spat into a landfill site without a single sentence being read keeps me awake at night.

Or alternatively they might have been picked up by a magpie of an aspiring reader who likes their covers and thinks they might fit in with the new kitchen colour scheme – but not a thought as to the convoluted adventures that await past those shiny covers.

If you happen by a lonely looking novel sitting in a bus depot or a coffee shop and notice that it obviously has no owner – look inside and see if it has one of those cheap printed labels. It may have been left there just for you, it could be the best book you’ll ever read, it could be fate. You never know it may even be one of mine. People of the world search out these orphaned books and give them a home, but more than that – give them a companion.