A Book Thing Road Trip
The DC BookCrossers invade Baltimore
by ResQgeekJune 22, 2008
How do BookCrossers prepare for a big book release event? Where do all the books come from? If you are a BookCrosser in the Washington, DC area, the answer, apparently, is the Book Thing of Baltimore, Inc.
The
Book Thing is a non-profit organization dedicated to putting "unwanted books into the hands of people who want them". Think of a used book store, where every book is free, and you begin to get an idea of what a visit to
the Book Thing is like.
In order to stock up on books to release at the Kensington (Maryland) Day of the Book festivities on April 27, the Washington, DC area BookCrossers decided to organize their March get together around a trip to the Book Thing. This would allow us to gather a bunch of books to release, while still having time to register and label them before our April event.
Saturday, March 15 was a beautiful sunny
spring day, perfect weather for the drive to Baltimore. We began arriving around 11:00 and set off to explore the series of interconnected rooms that make up the Book Thing. The seven BookCrossers from the DC area (myself, melydia and KateKintail from Northern
Virginia, SqueakyChu, creativeMGE, crrcookie and lilgrovers from Suburban Maryland, and florafloraflora from DC itself) were joined by MaryZee from Carroll County in Northern Maryland. As we browsed, we pointed out books to each other, suggested possible themed
releases and laughed at some of the titles we discovered.
Around noon, we began to head back to our cars to go to the nearby Panera Bread store, where we ate lunch and discussed the books we'd found. KateKintail discovered that she'd caught one of her own books, which she had donated to the Book Thing upon our arrival. I proposed starting a month name release challenge because of all the books we'd found with month names in the titles (The November Man, The February Plan, The Hunt for Red October, September, and August. We also made plans for participating in the Day of the Book in April.
All too soon it was time to head home. We loaded our books into our cars and said good-bye. Now we're busy registering our books and looking forward to giving them away in Kensington!
In the photos: creativeMGE and florafloraflora discuss books over coffee at Panera, while lilgrovers entertains himself with a novel.
The
Book Thing is a non-profit organization dedicated to putting "unwanted books into the hands of people who want them". Think of a used book store, where every book is free, and you begin to get an idea of what a visit to
the Book Thing is like.In order to stock up on books to release at the Kensington (Maryland) Day of the Book festivities on April 27, the Washington, DC area BookCrossers decided to organize their March get together around a trip to the Book Thing. This would allow us to gather a bunch of books to release, while still having time to register and label them before our April event.
Saturday, March 15 was a beautiful sunny
spring day, perfect weather for the drive to Baltimore. We began arriving around 11:00 and set off to explore the series of interconnected rooms that make up the Book Thing. The seven BookCrossers from the DC area (myself, melydia and KateKintail from Northern
Virginia, SqueakyChu, creativeMGE, crrcookie and lilgrovers from Suburban Maryland, and florafloraflora from DC itself) were joined by MaryZee from Carroll County in Northern Maryland. As we browsed, we pointed out books to each other, suggested possible themed
releases and laughed at some of the titles we discovered.Around noon, we began to head back to our cars to go to the nearby Panera Bread store, where we ate lunch and discussed the books we'd found. KateKintail discovered that she'd caught one of her own books, which she had donated to the Book Thing upon our arrival. I proposed starting a month name release challenge because of all the books we'd found with month names in the titles (The November Man, The February Plan, The Hunt for Red October, September, and August. We also made plans for participating in the Day of the Book in April.
All too soon it was time to head home. We loaded our books into our cars and said good-bye. Now we're busy registering our books and looking forward to giving them away in Kensington!
In the photos: creativeMGE and florafloraflora discuss books over coffee at Panera, while lilgrovers entertains himself with a novel.
