Book Swap

Do you have a dog-eared copy of The Kite Runner lying around that you’d like to share with another bibliophile? Instead of letting it gather dust on the shelf, you might want to check out BookCrossing.com, a website devoted to sharing books with strangers.

Just register the book on BookCrossing.com, put the stickers you order from the website on the cover and inside jacket saying ‘I’m Free!,’ and then “release it into the wild,” explains BookCrossing CEO Scott Sorochak, who runs the site from his Pleasanton home. While most members leave the books in busy public places like cafés or BART trains, Sorochak says, “We’ve had books left at the base of Mount Everest and wash up on shores in plastic baggies.”

The stickers have instructions for anyone picking up the book so he or she can go to the website and make a journal entry, specifying when and where the book was found. Launched in 2001, BookCrossing has more than 625,000 members in 135 countries. Registration is free, and bookmark and sticker kits range from $4 to $80 at www.bookcrossing.com.

Diablo recently registered Five Things I Can’t Live Without by East Bay author Holly Shumas, and sent it “into the wild” at Cherubini Coffee House in Alamo. To track its journey, click here for D-blog section of the website.