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March 4, 2004
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IN THIS ISSUE...


NEW BOOKCROSSING ARTICLES

CLIMBING MT. TBR
The recorded broadcasts of one man's trek
by Vysion

Day 18 The winds are horrific as they cut to the bone. Storm clouds loom as we set up Camp Three a few pages ahead. The team attempting Bridget Jones' Diary is stalled at a large crevice as they await a retractable bridge to be delivered by base camp. Yesterday, a break in the clouds allowed progress on The Handmaid's Tale trail. Before that, an unexpected find of extra rations in the food tent meant The First Horseman ended finally. Talk about dumb characters. In yet another John Case novel, the main character enters a residence when the front door is wide open and gets beaned in the head for it. Fortunately, I seek to avoid blows to the head as they slow my reading progress up the never ending mountain of books to be read. I will survive and I will conquer Mt. TBR....

[read it all at http://www.bookcrossing.com/articles/1078]


INTERNATIONAL FELLOWSHIP THROUGH BOOKS
Recent Strangers Become Instant Face-To-Face Friends
by Mary-Anne Boudreau (bluenoser)

I am the only active BookCrosser in this isolated, rural corner of Nova Scotia, over 200 miles away from the nearest Meet-Ups in Halifax. With mounting despair I was pondering my chances of ever meeting face-to-face with other members of this addictive organisation....

[read it all at http://www.bookcrossing.com/articles/1080]


BIBLIOHOLIC
My life-long addiction to books
by esl

My earliest memories are of my dad's monotone voice unravelling the exotic story of Ricki Ticki Tavi. Tucked up in the bedcovers, my sister and I listened to Kipling and other authors send us off to sleep. Years later, that same beloved voice read me the poem "David" by Earle Birney. I remember how crushed I was at a later date, when, meeting the author, I gushed about how moved I was with his "David", and he replied rather disparagingly about how one could never get past the first success. In high school I was reintroduced to Ricki Ticki Tavi, but this time by the ever-so-square librarian who managed to almost ruin it for me; wrong age, maybe. ...

[read it all at http://www.bookcrossing.com/articles/1081]


RE-LEASING
Liberation from resentment
by bobpp

I have, belatedly, realized that nearly all my life I have been indulging in a BookCrossing type of behaviour, which hitherto I have resented bitterly. It has taken BookCrossing to open my eyes to what is going on - How I Learned to Start Living and Love the Book Release (to misquote Dr. Strangelove). ...

[read it all at http://www.bookcrossing.com/articles/1087]


CALL FOR WRITERS

Want to write for BookCrossing? If your article is accepted, you could see it featured here in the next newsletter. What topics do we need? Anything about books, reading, or BookCrossing — tutorials, release and catch stories, well-traveled book stories, funny BookCrossing experience stories — you name it. Write it up, then submit it here:

http://www.bookcrossing.com/articles/submit




GLOBAL MEMBERSHIP STATS

Top 10 All-Time
USA 114,270 (52%)
CANADA 16,097 (7%)
UNITED KINGDOM 14,398 (7%)
GERMANY 12,094 (5%)
ITALY 10,417 (5%)
SPAIN 9,936 (5%)
AUSTRALIA 6,955 (3%)
PORTUGAL 2,785 (1%)
FRANCE 2,633 (1%)
NETHERLANDS 2,524 (1%)

Top 10 Last Week
USA 1,675 (56%)
GERMANY 213 (7%)
UNITED KINGDOM 188 (6%)
SPAIN 133 (4%)
AUSTRALIA 116 (4%)
CANADA 114 (4%)
ITALY 54 (2%)
CHINA 53 (2%)
FRANCE 39 (1%)
SWITZERLAND 32 (1%)



FEATURED PRODUCT AT THE SUPPLY STORE

How does BookCrossing make money to survive and grow? Not with membership fees - BookCrossing is free for everyone. Instead, most of our expenses are covered by Supply Store sales to generous members like you. Here's what's happening over at our secure online Store...

Reading Dr. Seuss
Reading Dr. Seuss - LAST CALL!

We've got only enough of these 7th-edition labels to last another 4-5 days, so if you want some, this is your last chance. They're available either a-la-carte or bundled with bookmarks and sticky-notes in our popular Release Kits.

Are you an artist? If you'd like your art to be featured on a future Bookplate series, please contact us at http://www.bookcrossing.com/contact. In exchange for the considerable exposure you'll get here and in the future on those 50,000 traveling books, we ask for only the original artwork, which we'll auction to further help support BookCrossing.


CHAMPION REFERRER SINCE LAST NEWSLETTER

Since the last newsletter on February 24, our champion new member referrer was AGAIN leeann347 from Charleston, South Carolina. A member since last September, leeann347 has now referred 38 new members, 21 of which joined since the last newsletter. From her profile, it looks like she is a high school English/Drama teacher, and is actively referring her students. Hope she's planning to share all her new bookplate labels with them! :-) You can visit leeann347's bookshelf here:

http://www.bookcrossing.com/mybookshelf/leeann347

As a token of appreciation for helping us grow, we'll be sending leeann347 a $50 gift certificate from our BookCrossing Supply Store. Want to win the $50 prize next newsletter? Get busy referring people! The best tactic: release lots of books so new members will find them and join. The next-best tactic: use our Tell-a-Friend form to quickly send an email invitation to everyone you know:

http://www.bookcrossing.com/tellafriend


SSM19 - YOU GO GIRL

Last week's SSM18 (Leap Year release) led to many interesting releases and pictures and at least one catch already (great picture of a statue in New Zealand included in the journal entries): http://www.bookcrossing.com/forum/21/435681/

This weekend's SSM19 celebrates International Women's Day on Monday, March 8, and was suggested by starrpeace in a forum post. For more information about this day's worthy designation, here's the description from the United Nation's website:

http://www.un.org/ecosocdev/geninfo/women/womday97.htm Since about 80% of BookCrossers are women, and the other 20% adore them, this SSM should appeal to most of you. So without further ado, I give you SSM19:

  • RELEASE ZONE: "Women's places" such as women's centers, women's stores, or other creative zones.
  • RELEASE METHOD: Release books about women or authored by women. Try to include a little blurb about March 8 being International Women's Day inside the book to help spread awareness of the special day.
  • RELEASE TIME: This Sunday, March 7, or if you prefer, Monday, March 8.

The 10 Rules of Sunday Sunset Missions:

  1. Don't talk about SSMs!
  2. Don't talk about SSMs! (you need to read or see Fight Club for that to make sense)
  3. Be on time! You can get the exact sunset time from http://www.weather.com/.
  4. Label the books properly. At the minimum, this means a sticky-note on the outside making it clear that the book is FREE and NOT LOST (don't write anything on the outside to cause others alarm!), and a good, descriptive label inside the cover explaining BookCrossing and including the BCID for the book.
  5. If possible, choose a book with content appropriate to the release location.
  6. If possible, print out one of the press articles from http://www.bookcrossing.com/press and include it with the book (the Utne Reader or Reader's Digest articles work well).
  7. Take pictures! Those of you with digital cameras, try to take a picture of the release zone with books, upload it with your journal entry, and make a post with the journal entry link in the SSM forum at http://www.bookcrossing.com/forum/21.
  8. Be safe! Use your common sense, and don't do anything to endanger persons or property.
  9. Pay attention to the media the following day or two, try to note any mention of the SSM, and post such mentions to the SSM forum.
  10. And finally, have fun!


As always, Happy 'Crossing!

Ron Hornbaker
Founder and Editor, BookCrossing.com






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