Sometimes I think I have too many books and not enough space for them.  So every year I try to get rid of some, but then I get newer ones.  Someday I may just go digital, it would save trees and save me space too.

The local used bookshop that I usually go to trade books are OK.  You don’t get much money from it, but you get store credits toward other used books. The prices aren’t so good, it’s about 30% off new books.  And I haven’t been able to find what I wanted there either.

I guess I could donate them to charity shops, but then I’m not so sure if someone would actually want the books.  It would be nice if someone had actually wanted my books, then I would know it went to a good place.  Just sentimental about certain things sometimes.

In the meantime, I just found out about BookMooch.  It’s a community for exchanging used books.  BookMooch lets you give away books you no longer need in exchange for books you really want.  Sounds like a good idea!

Just visit BookMooch for more info.

Here is some basic pointers from BookMooch:

1.  Give & receive: Every time you give someone a book, you earn a point and can get any book you want from anyone else at BookMooch. Once you’ve read a book, you can keep it forever or put it back into BookMooch for someone else, as you wish.

2.  No cost: there is no cost to join or use this web site: your only cost is mailing your books to others.

3.  Points for entering books: you receive a tenth-of-a-point for every book you type into our system, and one point each time you give a book away. In order to keep receiving books, you need to give away at least one book for every three you receive.

4.  Help charities: you can also give your points to charities we work with, such as children’s hospitals (so a sick kid can get a free book delivered to their bed), Library fund, African literacy, or to us to thank us for running this web site.

5.  World wide: You can request books from other countries, in other languages. You receive 3 points when you send a book out of your country, to help compensate you for the greater mailing cost, but it only costs the moocher 2 points to get the book. John Buckman, who runs BookMooch, has lived in California, England, France and Germany, and was frustrated by the vast number of books that were printed in just one country and not available in the other countries (for example, many books are published in Britain and never made available in America).

Image source:

Bookmooch