Book swaps with strangers

Just a quick little reflection on the quirky and cute phenomenon of casual bookswaps in public places.

I'd actually kind of forgotten, but the suburb I'm staying in at the moment house sitting has a train station waiting room in which there is a humble little pile of best sellers that people pick up and read and drop back / replenish with their speedily thumbed adventuresome light Christmas reading.

And at a cafe a few towns away there is another very humble couple of shelves on an unassuming bookshelf that says - feel free to take and read or leave books here. What I extra extra love is the complete weird mix of titles in this one - from self help books to drab little house and garden related non fiction to airport novels to hard cover classics. I also extra extra love that the store of books remains constant - that at least in this part of the world, in these shelves, people give as much as they take. Which makes me muse that maybe this is actually the case on average everywhere but we just forget the half full bit sometimes, and we also forget that people are generous and community minded and don't always need strict rules of give and take for things to work well.

And yes - I have taken and read two this week - a story of a woman's family upheaval and reformation (sweet, a bit too true life tales for my taste but bearable) and a sassy funny chick lit 'detective novel' (of sorts - actually she's a lawyer but the template and characters are the same style). So yes, it's not adding much in the way of fibre and nutrients for my reading diet - but sometimes junk food is called for. And no I haven't actually made a deposit yet, because I'm housesitting and don't have old novels with me - but thought I'd return each of the books to the other book swap location, at least to keep things circulating freshly.

Anyone got one of these near where they live?