BookCrossing: Yang the Second and Her Secret Admirers

After the Granville Island catch of The Gammage Cup on the evening of July 8, the second catch of the three books I released mid-day on July 8, 2010, was for Yang the Second and Her Secret Admirers. That catch came in at 6:35 p.m. on July 9 (despite the entry's date-stamp saying July 10). The catch:

I found this book at Granville Island yesterday!! When i go to Seattle ill leave the book somewhere. im too lazy to read it though, sorry.

BookCrossing: The Gammage Cup

On July 8 I biked from home in Coquitlam to Granville Island in Vancouver to meet my mom and brother and bro's girlfriend. Our meeting point was the Trans Canada Trail display that is near False Creek Community Centre, and the plan was to then bike to my place along said trail. However, an unfortunate mishap occurred and the bike ride back was made by just my mom and me. She did amazingly well, especially considering it was - at that point - the hottest day of the year, and we were biking during the hottest part of the day. I did manage to release three books at the display, and two of them were caught within 24 hours! The first one -for The Gammage Cup - hit my inbox at 11:55 p.m. that same day, 12 and a half hours after the release (so please ignore the July 9 date-stamp on the catch's entry; it should read July 8). The catch:

Hello! I captured this book at about 1:20 on July 8, 2010 at the bridge by False Creek Racing Canoe Club on my way to dragon boat. Where will you go next little book?

pennies into the blowholes of dolphins

Q)
He sounds like a character.
A)
He is. When I was a kid, he took me to SeaWorld in San Diego, and he got a four-week suspended sentence for trying to throw pennies into the blowholes of dolphins. Now he's found God and he's not as much fun.

-- Generation A by Douglas Coupland

That sounds like someone I know, though we never did anything quite like that. We've both always been fond of animals and never intentionally harmed them.

BookCrossing: Return to Wuthering Heights

I'm a few catches behind; in the past couple of weeks I've been lucky with several quick catches, and my release/caught percentage is sitting pretty at 13.708260105448156. Breaking 14% would be great. I released Return to Wuthering Heights in Burnaby on April 30, 2010, (or April 29 - I'd really like to know why BookCrossing release notes are no longer date/time specific, but no one's answering my posts on the matter) and a catch came in on June 26! The emailed journal entry says that the catch came "from New York City, New York USA" (and it's a shame that that info is no longer included in the actual journal entries). The catch:

A classic I havent read....Thanks!! Very excited to see where this one goes and plan to add a few myself...

BookCrossing: Poseidon's Gold

I released Poseidon's Gold at Bellis Fair in Bellingham, WA, in late May and it spent just 11 days in the wild before being caught. The journal entry by AnonymousFinder is amusingly blunt:

Definitely not going to read this thing..

I was helping a friend move out of her dorm at Western Washington University, and we found this lonely book thrown on the ground in front of the elevator. Not really sure how it made it here from BC, but...

'Several cheers' indeed.

Excellent question.

Thing is, I'd taken a slice of boring white bread from its bakery bag and had slapped it onto a small patch of yellow sandy dirt. I was standing up to photograph the slice of bread using my mobile phone. Why would you have been doing this? I hear you wonder. Excellent question. I was making an "Earth sandwich."

-- Generation A by Douglas Coupland

I love love love where this takes place. Douglas Coupland is one of my favourite authors, and the discovery of this one of the five important locations was tremendously exciting for me.

BookCrossing: Silver Bells

Whenever we travel down to the States to do some shopping at Seattle Premium Outlets, I take some books to release. Usually leaving them on the benches along the walkway, I've received some good catches and some of the books have gone overseas. We usually go to Eagles Buffet in Tulalip Casino for lunch, and I've released just a couple of books in the casino. On the first of this month I experienced my first Tulalip Casino catch! Wooooot! It's for Silver Bells, which means both copies of Silver Bells I've released have now been caught. Here's the other catch, and here's the journal entry for this catch:

Haven't read it yet. Picked up the book at Hidden Shores.

Velocity by Dean Koontz

I had never before read a Koontz book and I flew through this one super fast. I can see why his books are so popular, as the plot just steamrolls forward with increasing suspense and any time spent not reading is spent thinking of the book and wanting to read more. A fun and creepy read.

Velocity on BookCrossing.

sounded as if they truly cared

As he ate a Hershey's bar, a Planters, he read the printouts. University, public, and police officials were quoted. Everyone except the police expressed confidence that Judith would be found safe.

The cops were guarded in their statements. Unlike the academics, bureaucrats, and politicians, they avoided bullshit. They were the only ones who sounded as if they truly cared about the young woman.

-- Velocity by Dean Koontz

must care and not care

The sleeper, safe and dreaming, was his true purpose and also his only hope of redemption. For that, he must care and not care; he must be still.

-- Velocity by Dean Koontz

Tuesdays with Morrie by Mitch Albom

A very easy book to read, with many nuggets scattered throughout - some grand nuggets, some less so. Morrie has wise things to say about how we should live our lives, but if collected and sold without decoration, I feel the aphorisms wouldn't be as valued. What makes them valuable here is the story behind them. The story Albom has told about reconnecting with a former professor is one that readers can take great joy in as they remember past professors of their own.

Tuesdays with Morrie on BookCrossing.

More is good. More is good.

"We've got a form of brainwashing going on in our country," Morrie sighed. "Do you know how they brainwash people? They repeat something over and over. And that's what we do in this country. Owning things is good. More money is good. More property is good. More commercialism is good. More is good. More is good. We repeat it - and have it repeated it to us - over and over until nobody bothers to even think otherwise. The average person is so fogged up by all this, he has no perspective on what's really important anymore."

-- Tuesdays with Morrie by Mitch Albom

BookCrossing: The Awakening

I was in Vancouver last Sunday morning having a Mother's Day brunch with my mama and my bro and my bro's girlfriend. We went to a cool new place on the corner of Dunbar Street and West 18th Ave. The name escapes me, but it's on the SE corner and had very good food, and very healthy portions. As I made my way back home with a full belly I stopped at two parks to release some books. It's fitting that of the four books I released on Mother's Day, the one that first received a journal entry was the one registered by my mother. It garnered a new member too. Here's the catch for The Awakening, which I released at Trout Lake:

fist book I have read this year^_^ and it was great!

we're half-asleep

"Because," Morrie continued, "most of us all walk around as if we're sleepwalking. We really don't experience the world fully, because we're half-asleep, doing things we automatically think we have to do."

And facing death changes all that?

"Oh, yes. You strip away all that stuff and you focus on the essentials. When you realize you are going to die, you see everything much differently."

He sighed. "Learn how to die, and you learn how to live."

-- Tuesdays with Morrie by Mitch Albom

The reason I chose this passage to share as an excerpt is that I like the message.  Now it's time for me to go outside and enjoy the sun by going for a run with the doggies.