BookCrossing: Life of Pi

After getting my mama to join BookCrossing and wild release some books, she was having no luck getting journal entries. I really wanted her to get one so that she could see that it does indeed happen and that it's a thrill when it does. Years ago, I borrowed and read her copy of Life of Pi by Yann Martel. I loved it and have been trying to get Biscotti to read it. She's got a few books in the queue, so I figured this was a great book to release via my mother's BookCrossing account. I registered it under her username, then journaled with my username, then released it on June 23 2008 in Pacific Spirit Park, where, coincidentally, we bumped into my mama pre-release.

Two days ago, a catch! Here's the entry that hit my inbox - and my mama's I hope (she's currently busy in New Zealand):

Found the book on the trail as mentioned above and took it home. Took me a while to get started and into the book.
Type of book that gets better and better after you've let it digest for a while...
I found the first section quite dry even though I'm an Indiaphile but the second section was quite absorbing... and then zingo came the third section. I spent a week thinking about the ending!
Problem with releasing the book back into the wild is finding the right place... but I think I saw a novel (heh heh) place yesterday.

Life of Pi on BookCrossing. It's already been rereleased on Granville Island!

BookCrossing: Invasion and Sword of the Demon

Of late, my BookCrossing luck has been going buck wild. For the longest time I would rarely get a journalled catch and my catch percentage was between nine and ten percent. Now the catches won't stop coming! On Monday I got a short entry on a book I released - Invasion by Robin Cook - on August third in Stanley Park:

found the book and will release

Invasion on BookCrossing.

Then today an entry for Sword of the Demon by Richard A. Lupoff, which I released on Friday:

I was out for dinner on Main St with a friend when she reached into a newspaper box to grab a Georgia Strait. She grabbed a newspaper out from under a paperback and then closed the door. We started to walk away when I said, "Wait..." and returned to the box. "Maybe it's a BookCrossing book!" It was!
This is the first ever that I have caught. My friend hadn't heard of BookCrossing so I explained it all to her and she was intrigued. I'm excited to re-release it somewhere in my hometown.

Sword of the Demon on BookCrossing.

As of this sentence being written, I have released four hundred and two books. Forty-five have been journalled as caught, for a percentage of eleven point one nine four zero two nine eight five zero...

with today in my eyes

Douglas Coupland writes good books. Fiction and non-fiction alike, I get completely entranced when reading his work. The very first book of his I read, some ten years ago now, was Polaroids from the Dead, a mix of fiction and non-fiction. For a year or so after reading it a passage would cross my mind and I would go back and read that section again. Today, many years since last cracking open the book's cover, a small portion of the book came to me. It took mere seconds to find it when I got home:

I made notes in my notebook - casual voices and things we had heard and seen over the past day that made more sense than other things, and this is what I wrote in my book:

• I could happily die right now with nothing but today in my eyes. (A line written by Truman Capote I had read in a book the night before.)
  

...
For a souvenir I gave the German reporter an old white T-shirt that I asked him to put on. Then, with a thick Sharpie permanent black felt-tip marker I wrote in it the corrected wording of the Truman Capote quote I had written incorrectly earlier in my note pad. I wrote:

As for me
I could leave the world
with today
in my eyes.
-t.c.

BookCrossing: Windmills of the Gods and Simmer Down

Two books I released in Pacific Spirit Park almost a month apart both checked in yesterday.

Windmills of the Gods I released on July 15th (Happy Anniversary Biscotti!). Here's the touching anonymous journal entry for that one:

I came across this book as I was walking through the park one evening trying to calm my thoughts down. I was to be at the hospital very early in the morning for a long test. I had forgotten to go to the library and get something to read as the test requires sitting quietly for 3 hours waiting... Such a blessing to see a book - just what I needed. Junk fiction, no investment, didn't matter if I couldn't concentrate. Thanks for the gift! I'll release as soon as I can remember to take it out of the house with me.

Here's a link to Windmills of the Gods on BookCrossing.

Simmer Down I first released on June 15th inside a Westender box. Two days later I was in the area, checked the box, and the book was still there. So I took it and rereleased it on June 20th. Here's the journal entry made by new bookcrosser monitorman:

We found this book while walking our dog towards Spanish Banks. It wasn't on the bench, but nearby, on the gate where two trails cross. Very intrigued by the little post-it telling me it wasn't "lost".
I'm going to read it, and release it soon.

Here's a link to Simmer Down on BookCrossing.

BookCrossing: Caroline Masters (plus two others!)

Well well well, three BookCrossing catches in two days! Two came in yesterday, one anonymously and one with a new member:

• Blue-jeaned Prince -- My friends and I found this gem on top of a newspaper box on Dunbar. We proceeded to read it aloud to each other in the park. It was an exciting, sensual tale of love found where it was least expected.
• The Gathering of the Winds -- I found this book in Pacific Spirit Park on the Council Trail. It provided my friends and me with much amusement after the fireworks at English Bay. Many thanks!

And then one came in yesterday. On Tuesday morning I left Vancouver with Biscotti and my mom and a couple of my registered books to release. Caroline Masters, by Richard North Patterson, was released in Seattle's Pioneer Square, just inside the entrance to the Underground Tour building. On Friday, the following journal entry was made by a new BookCrossing member from Germany:

I found this book on July 23 08 in the building of the "Underground Tour" when I was visiting seattle :-)
-07/23/08: the book arrived Vancouver...welcome back ;-P

Here's a link to Caroline Masters on BookCrossing.

BookCrossing: Affliction

For many months I have had a large box full of books that need to be labeled and released. With the start of summer and some decent weather (now gone missing), I've stepped up my efforts and have released sixteen books in the past four weeks. On Wednesday, Biscotti and I took the dogs to low tide at Spanish Banks, where I left Fay Weldon's Affliction on a park bench. Last night, I received an email with this new journal entry made by new member bbtea of Calgary, Alberta:

found it on a bench by the beach near UBC. was definitely surprised. I had not experienced anything like that. already half-way done the book. interesting read so far. planning to take it to california this summer and drop it there. whoever picks it up, keep the chain going!

Here's a link to Affliction on BookCrossing.

Ulysses by James Joyce

It's been a long time since reading a novel - reading anything - was this hard. I wasn't enjoying the read, but giving up was not an option. I must finish. I have to finish. In the end, I couldn't finish. My bookmark is on page 47 of 704 and I haven't touched the book in several weeks; I can't even bring myself to look in its direction, which is hard as it's been collecting dust on my bedside table! Over two years ago, in February of 2006, I PM'd an American BookCrosser and offered to mail this novel in their direction when I was finished with it. Since I'm now finally finished with it (or is it finished with me?), I'll PM them again to see if they're still interested. Time to choose some lighter reading off Mt. TBR for the start of summer.

Ulysses on BookCrossing.

A coughball of laughter

- Mr Dedalus!

Running after me. No more letters, I hope.

- Just one moment.

- Yes, sir, Stephen said, turning back at the gate.

Mr Deasy halted, breathing hard and swallowing his breath.

- I just wanted to say, he said. Ireland, they say, has the honour of being the only country which never persecuted the jews. Do you know that? No. And do you know why?

He frowned sternly on the bright air.

- Why, sir? Stephen asked, beginning to smile.

- Because she never let them in, Mr Deasy said solemnly.

A coughball of laughter leaped from his throat dragging after it a rattling chain of phlegm. He turned back quickly, coughing, laughing, his lifted arms waving to the air.

- She never let them in, he cried again through his laughter as he stamped on gaitered feet over the gravel of the path. That's why.

On his wise shoulders through the checkerwork of leaves the sun flung spangles, dancing coins.

-- Ulysses by James Joyce

BookCrossing: Light on Snow

My mother traveled to New Zealand in October and carried along a couple of my BookCrossing books to wild release. One of the books - Light on Snow by Anita Shreve - attracted interest from my uncle who thought that his partner would like to read it. The book was given to him and, presumably, eventually made its way to my uncle's partner.

Yesterday, a journal entry arrived in my email's in-box. While I have my suspicions, I do not know from whom the entry came from. Maybe my uncle's partner, or maybe...? Irregardless of the source, here's the short but sufficient journal entry:

Has been in temporary custody in the Manawatu.

Here's a link to the book on BookCrossing.

BookCrossing: Me Talk Pretty One Day

Way back in the spring of 2005, I handed a book - Me Talk Pretty One Day by David Sedaris - to someone who subsequently joined BookCrossing and journaled the book a few days later. Unfortunately, the site seemed to confuse her, as she didn't journal the book under her username. In fact, after journaling anonymously with the original BCID, she actually ended up registering the book, giving it another BCID - which is wrong! wrong! wrong!

I had given up on hearing from the book again, mostly because I had no idea if she had written the new BCID into the book or not. Good news, though. Did you notice how this paragraph's first sentence was written in the past tense? Yesterday, more than three years since its last check-in, I got an email telling me the book was journaled! The finder had used my BCID! Woo-hoo! (Of course, there's a good chance that my BCID was the only one.)

Here's the newest journal entry:

Found this book at a used book store in Steveston BC. I think I will give this book away either on my travels or to a friend, haven't decided yet.

Here's a link to the book on BookCrossing.

he saw the sea hailed as a great sweet mother

Stephen, an elbow rested on the jagged granite, leaned his palm against his brow and gazed at the fraying edge of his shiny black coat-sleeve. Pain, that was not yet the pain of love, fretted his heart. Silently, in a dream she had come to him after her death, her wasted body within its loose brown graveclothes giving off an odour of wax and rosewood, her breath, that had bent upon him, mute, reproachful, a faint odour of wetted ashes. Across the threadbare cuffedge he saw the sea hailed as a great sweet mother by the wellfed voice beside him. The ring of bay and skyline held a dull green mass of liquid. A bowl of white china had stood beside her deathbed holding the green sluggish bile which she had torn up from her rotting liver by fits of loud groaning vomiting.

-- Ulysses by James Joyce

Marilyn Monroe reading Ulysses

I put it off, I put if off, I put it off again - "Put it Off" by The Tragically Hip

After putting it off again and again, I am finally beginning to read James Joyce's Ulysses. Here's a photo of Marilyn Monroe reading said book.

The Explorer of Barkham Street by Mary Stolz

An enjoyable and realistic story of a young boy that has the potential to prompt good critical thought. Some of the issues faced by the boy could be talked out by the reader with the guidance of a parent/guardian. Issues such as body image, friendships, pet ownership/campanionship, hobbies, responsibility. All in all, I got way more out of this book than I thought I would. It made me think of my first dog, Lucky, several times.

The Explorer of Barkham Street on BookCrossing.

BookCrossing Catch: Voodoo River

A fortnight ago, while in Las Vegas, I released a book - Voodoo River by Robert Crais - and yesterday it was journaled by the catcher!

Here's the journal entry:

there we were on a lovely day in the river pool area at the mgm grand las vegas. on our way out, we spied this book. a lovely gesture, made more so by the fact it was registered by someone not far from our home in victoria, bc, canada. i was already immersed in a book but look forward to enjoying this - thanks canada!!

Here's a link to the book on BookCrossing.