Moving to Salisbury, NC from Washington, D.C. when I was nine was quite a culture shock for a little boy. To be honest I was a bit of a brat and felt myself above "this little town" and while that was a bit pretentious it was true to the degree that the educational system had much lower standards than those of the D.C. area.

I found that I could easily get all A's simply by acing tests and being the teacher's pet while completely ignoring homework and in-school assignments. While this plan only really worked to the end of middle school it allowed me to pursue my own interests undisturbed; the main one being reading.

Now I know that this is the old battle hymn of adolescene, but it is indeed true for many of us that we feel misunderstood, isolated, confused...blah-da-blah-blah during our formative years. I was no exception, but instead of finding solace in the common forms of youthful rebellion (yogurt snorting, penguin fondling) I found a form of comfort in books.

Clockwork Orange, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, Beyond Good and Evil, The Stranger, Anthem, the poetry of Allen Ginsberg are just a few of the books that kept me sane while working out various issues. We all know what these issues are. We've all had these issues and we've all written really, really, really bad poetry about them.

Anyway, I heard about bookcrossing on NPR and didn't really get excited about at the time, but I did think "Oh, that's a cool idea!". Then, a couple of months after that, I meet a random person and gave them a copy The Unbearable Lightness of Being which instantly created a connection between us and lead into a great friendship.

I obviously don't expect this to happen with all the books I send out, but I would appreciate it if you happen to have come across one of my books to at least throw a out a line or two about what you thought about it and what you did with it.

Most of my books aren't released "in the wild" so to speak, because I prefer to give them to people personally. Some are friends, but many are random people I decide I like on sight. It is my view that this does not go against the philosophy of bookcrossing.com, because it still leaves a lot to chance and fate while giving my books a certain amount of security that they'll be read. People who are passing my book on don't have to do the same, but please put it someplace safe is all I ask.