TAGGED BOOKS LOAN

had this crazy idea when i went to borders at the curve yesterday with my children to scout for some books. indulged myself in 2 p/b books (since i still have some money from the stm book allowance) which i longed to read for a long time - arok of Java by Pramoedya Ananta Toer and midnight children by salman rushdie. will slowly devour these 2 gems. as i don't buy books as often as pearlie (no offence, just a bit of envy), there is no way i can get to read all the books i like (and i am not even talking about elie wiesel and chaim potok).

so, this crazy idea is this - a crazy scheme for desperate bibliaphiloi: those of us with books to spare and we don't read them at present, we lend them to each other for a specific time period so that the unfortunate ones who cannot afford to buy them can get a chance to read them! we will call it 'TAGGED BOOKS LOAN'

we can tag each other (like the tag game) and the one who is tagged reveals 5 books titles he or she can lend to others. the others will 'bid' for them on a first come first serve basis. how we are going to pass the books to each other, i will leave it to the ingenuity of the book owners - through mail post, through friends, through church contacts, through meeting points like TEE, through a common centre where bibliaphiloi can gather with their precious hoard etc. only 2 rules apply: 1] to treat the books with extreme care i.e. no over-bending of the book spine, tearing of pages etc 2] not to lose the books (if lost, payment should be made to the book owner on the books' present value).

to kick start, here are my 5 books available for lending:

thomas harris, the silence of the lambs and red dragon (2 in 1), h/b
sara gruen, water for elephants, p/b
dara horn, the world to come, h/b
harry kemelmann, tuesday the rabbi saw red, h/b
umberto eco, foucalt's pendulum, p/b

ha, never guess the reb read this type of stuff? well, you can know a person by what he/she reads. go and see the personal library of someone and you will know where he/she stands.

so, i get to tag!!! who else but PEARLIE!!!!!

and the 5 books are on loan!!

Comments

pearlie said…
I must confess, I do overbuy books but to the detriment of not having enough time to read them all (so much so that I wish I could bring them all to heaven except that knowledge in heaven would be perfect and we may not be needing the books anymore?)

Anyway, tagged book loan eh? Great idea but logistics will be certainly be an issue. (Reminds me of BookCrossing.com - a very interesting idea and maybe a good way to evangelise as well.)

These are my five books I tagged, all of which I have enjoyed immensely:

Paul Levinson, Plot to Save Socrates
Trudi Canavan, The Magician's Guild (1/3)
Trudi Canavan, The Novice (2/3)
Trudi Canavan, The High Lord (3/3)
Bill Bryson, A Short History of Nearly Everything
the last one is good.

as for book crossing, my daugther was involved in it once. i still have one copy of it - a travelling book. of big fish in german.

logistics! can be solved if one is desparate.