PLEASE NOTE: I have recently moved to Oakland, CA. If you are mailing me a book, please make sure that you have the new address! And for those of you whom I owe books that got side-tracked during the move, please rest assured that they are on their way soon!

I am a bookcrosser because I love the serendipity of it all. I love to leave a book on a park bench, wish it luck, and even if it's not journaled, I can wonder about where it has traveled -- and hopefully, people will turn off their TVs to read, and will take the time to consciously share these books with each other. It's a different form of community, a lovely form of altruism and giving. I really do love this site.

As for our own BCing community, I am also eager to trade and discuss amongst ourselves. I really enjoy bookrings and trades, because I love to see different people's impressions of the books -- what touched them, what they absolutely detested, and why. So, yes, if you'd like one of my AVL books (or even some of the TBRs), I would be happy to trade ... although my wallet only permits me to do so within the US at this point. Also, please note that this Bookshelf is not a true reflection of my reading tastes -- for that, you can see my "Books Read This Year" list, which is below. I purchase many of the books on this shelf with BCing in mind.

I finally made a Wish List! (thanks, cliff!) My Wish List

Wild Release Books that Have Been Caught and Journalled: 1 out of 36
(oh, that's so sad!)

A link to a cute verse, from The Cat in the Hat, to write on the inside of wild-release books. Hopefully, so more people will journal them! :)

I have decided to join a Bookcrossing Challenge for 2005 (more details here). This involves reading books by 52 new-to-me authors, organized by letters of the alphabet (26 books by A-Z authors, and 26 books A-Z by title, but still all new-to-me authors). The books listed here are just to give me ideas, and please send me your ideas as well; the books in red are completed. I would love to make this a more diverse and multi-cultural reading list -- any ideas for great reads?

A-Z by Author
A: Daughter of Fortune (Isabel Allende)[1/27, 399]
B: Dry: A Memoir (Augusten Burroughs)[1/5, 293]
C: Don't Get Me Started (Kate Clinton)[1/26, 199]
D: Geek Love (Katherine Dunn)[7/12, 351]
E: Invisible Man (Ralph Ellison)
F: The Eyre Affair (Jasper Fforde)[6/22, 374]
G: Bee Season: A Novel (Myla Goldberg)[6/30, 274]
H: What Was She Thinking? [Notes on a Scandal] (Zoe Heller) [10/3, 258] and BONUS!!! The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time (Mark Haddon) [10/30, 240]
I: A Widow for One Year (John Irving)
J: Sappho's Leap (Erica Jong) or The Blue Bedspread (Raj Kamal Jha)
K: Under the Banner of Heaven: A Story of Violent Faith (Jon Krakauer)[4/28, 396]
L: Sister Outsider (Audre Lorde)
M: A Minor Indiscretion (Carole Matthews)[6/18, 392]
N: The Time Traveler's Wife (Audrey Niffenegger)[10/19, 518]
O: Find Me (Rosie O'Donnell)[3/13, 213]
P: The Pact: A Love Story (Jodi Picoult)[2/17, 395]
Q: Monster of God: The Man-Eating Predator in the Jungles of History and the Mind (David Quammen)
R: Tender at the Bone: Growing Up at the Table (Ruth Reichl)[8/7, 304]
S: Coffee Will Make You Black (April Sinclair)[3/28, 239]
T: Eats, Shoots & Leaves: The Zero Tolerance Approach to Punctuation (Lynne Truss)[4/28, 236]
U: Rabbit, Run! (John Updike)
V: The Partly Cloudy Patriot (Sarah Vowell)[10/17, 224]
W: The Devil Wears Prada: A Novel (Lauren Weisberger)[2/25, 360]
X: Soul Mountain (Gao Xingjian)
Y: Lying on the Couch (Irvin D. Yalom)[8/28, 384]
Z: A People's History of the United States (Howard Zinn)

A-Z by Title
A: Artemis Fowl (Eoin Colfer) [8/24, 277]
B: The Bad Beginning: A Series of Unfortunate Events, Book 1 (Lemony Snicket) [5/11, 167]
C: Charlie All Night (Jennifer Crusie)[3/2, 256]
D: Darkness Visible: A Memoir of Madness (William Styron)[1/15, 84]
E: Empress of the World (Sara Ryan) or The Emigrants (W.G. Sebald)
F:
G: A Girl Becomes A Comma Like That (Lisa Glatt)[9/28, 290]
H: Homegrown Democrat: A Few Plain Thoughts from the Heart of America (Garrison Keillor)[9/25, 237]
I: I Don't Know How She Does It (Allison Pearson) [10/23, 340]
J:
K:Kitchen (Banana Yoshimoto)[8/3, 160]
L: Loose Screws (Karen Templeton)[5/4, 331]
M: The Magician's Assistant (Ann Patchett)[7/7, 357]
N: Naked (David Sedaris)[7/4, 291]
O: One Degree of Separation (Karin Kallmaker)[9/30, 207]
P: Plain and Simple: A Journey to the Amish (Sue Bender)[7/22, 176]
Q: Quarterlife Crisis: How to Get Your Head Round Life in Your Twenties (Abby Wilner and Alexandra Robbins)[2/8, 198]
R: Rape: A Love Story (Joyce Carol Oates)[3/30, 154]
S: The Saving Graces (Patricia Gaffney)[5/23, 394]
T: Two Girls, Fat and Thin (Mary Gaitskill)[4/4, 388]
U: Unnatural Dykes To Watch Out For (Alison Bechdel)[3/20, 142]
V: Visits From The Afterlife: The Truth About Hauntings, Spirits, and Reunions with Lost Loved Ones (Sylvia Browne, with Lindsay Harrison)[3/11, 277]
W: Waiting: The True Confessions of a Waitress (Debra Ginsberg)[5/20, 314]
X:
Y: The Yellow Wallpaper (Charlotte Perkins Gilman)[3/18, 60]
Z: Zlata's Diary: A Child's Life in Sarajevo (Zlata Filipovic)[5/15, 216]

Books read in 2005, outside of the parameters of the BCing Challenge:
Sellevision: A Novel (Augusten Burroughs)[2/27, 229]
Razor Burn (Scott Pomfret and Scott Whittier)[2/1, 258]
The Five People You Meet in Heaven (Mitch Albom)[5/11, 196]
My Sister's Keeper (Jodi Picoult)[5/26, 423]
Will They Ever Trust Us Again?: Letters from the War Zone (Michael Moore)[5/29, 233]
Venus Envy (Rita Mae Brown)[6/8, 389]
Lost in a Good Book (Jasper Fforde)[7/17, 416]
The Well of Lost Plots (Jasper Fforde)[7/30, 416]
Comfort Me with Apples: More Adventures at the Table (Ruth Reichl)[8/13, 320]
Something Rotten (Jasper Fforde)[8/19, 416]
The River King (Alice Hoffman)[9/14, 352]
Sugar (Karin Kallmaker)[10/25, 209]

Bookring for The Handmaid's Tale (Margaret Atwood) --> PM me if interested in joining

Arjay1977 (CA)
theory19 (CA)
tuff517 (TX)
Tiredngrumpy (FL)
mitziyah (WA)
Sidney1220 (MN) (removed by request)
Bunnybee (TX)
Helly77 (UK)
Scarlett17 (UK)
tangledthreads (UK)(<--arrived 04/08)
sparklefaerie (BC)
Antof9 (CO)
huntersmith (GA)
...and back to me, calvarez4 (CA)


Bookrings I hosted in the past:
Where You Belong (Barbara Taylor Bradford)
Pandora: New Tales of the Vampires (Anne Rice)
The River King (Alice Hoffman)

As a side project, I would love to see books registered here, with me, to travel to and be "caught" in all 50 states. I'll keep a log, and see how it goes (crossed off once a book has been caught in that state--this does not include bookrings originated by other BCers):
Alabama - Alaska - Arizona - Arkansas - California - Colorado - Connecticut - Delaware - Florida - Georgia - Hawaii - Idaho - Illinois - Indiana - Iowa - Kansas - Kentucky - Louisiana - Maine - Maryland - Massachusetts - Michigan - Minnesota - Mississippi - Missouri - Montana - Nebraska - Nevada - New Hampshire - New Jersey - New Mexico - New York - North Carolina - North Dakota - Ohio - Oklahoma - Oregon - Pennsylvania - Rhode Island - South Carolina - South Dakota - Tennessee - Texas - Utah - Vermont - Virginia - Washington - West Virginia - Wisconsin - Wyoming