How many meetings have you been in where someone says sarcastically (and as if you're the organization's idiot): "Well" (huff, huff) "we're not trying to solve world peace?" Well, huff, huff, some of us--call me naive--would like to. Thus, the second in my new series on things that might (see "Why Twitter may lead to world peace").
Thanks to Nathan Brandsford's cheeky and helpful blog for writers (he's a literary agent at Curtis Brown), I've learned about BookCrossing, the brainchild of Ron Hornbaker. In the effort to "make the whole world a library," Ron came up with the idea to create a website where people register books (which means obtaining a "BCID"--BookCrossing ID) then leave them in public places. Someone else picks up the book, notices that it's got this special marking on it, then goes to the BookCrossing site and posts where the book has traveled. That person, in turn, drops it elsewhere and long/short in its six or so short years of existence, BookCrossing has registered 633,242 (with me) members who've registered some 4.5 million books traveling around the world.
Of course, there is a huge online community that's grown up around BookCrossing with members stretching from the Antarctic to the Arctic (may they forever remain cold).
Incredibly, the second most traveled book? A Passage to India by EM Forster, within which is my favorite phrase from all literature: "Only connect," my Rx for world peace.
