JAHTARI Magazine



previously in BOOKS: Pulp Fiction classics: Dr. Fu-Manchu Bookmooch - swap and read The Ultimate History Of Video Games Recommended stories: The History Of Reggae Music 8_BIT Odyssey The Secreet Of Interactive Fiction Other fine Blogs: PlayTheRecords Vitriolix MusicThing From Asbo to Hasbo RiddimMethod Kid Kameleon Blog DJ Ripley Blog	BOOKMOOCH: swap your books around the world for free. Well, almost. I recently stumbled upon the fine Bookmooch-concept via PHLOW.NET - and now I'm addicted! The idea is this: most people have heaps of books at home they won't read again. Huge, impressive-looking, dust- catching libraries. So why not getting rid of these and send them to people who might enjoy the read? And getting other books back in return! For free. Well, almost.

		Bookmooch.com itself is completely non-commercial. It's merely a database where you can add old books you want to get rid of and that everybody can search for stuff they'd like to have. If you find something you like you just "mooch" it from the owner - and he'll it send to your home. At his own costs. Vice versa people can mooch books from you too, if you agree to send it over you pay for the shipment.

	The currency here are points that you get rewarded for every piece you send. Or for every book you enter into the database. With these points you can go mooching around. The system is really clever: if you ship to foreign countries you'll receive 3 points, for mooching a book in foreign countries you pay 2 points. That means that for sending away two old books you'll get three for free. And so on. A really fine deal that makes it damn cheap to get new reading material while minimizing paper waste around the world. For instance, shipping a book around the globe from Germany never costs more than 3 EUR. So for spending 6 EUR for shipping you'll get three books back. Sounds nice and really works. The database is not as extensive as amazon's, though, but since the whole thing is really worldwide you can also search for books in many languages, from Italian over Greek on to Korean. The biggest part is made up of English versions still. I also really like the "Donate Your Points"-feature where bigger contributors - like libraries that made an inventory - can pass on their points to charity organisations, schools or whatever. So if you got heaps of old paperback cramming your flat it's really worth a check. Great to get hold of old classics for almost no costs!

	Links: www.bookmooch.com