Last night I joined BookMooch to get rid of some of the extra books I have lying around that no one will ever read again. They range from old paperbacks I bought for plane trips to pretty new hardbacks that I read but didn’t love. I mean, I’m not giving away my tattered paperback Catch-22 that I’ve read a dozen times, or my signed copy of Halting State. But I have plenty of books that I don’t need. BookMooch works by giving you points for giving away books. 1/10 of a point for listing a book you’re willing to give. One point for actually sending it, and 3 for sending it overseas. For each point, you can request a book from someone else. The sender always pays shipping. So I listed eleven books last night that I’m willing to part with. Within an hour, I already had four requests, and by this morning it was up to six. So it looks like I’m making a trip to the post office tomorrow. And I have some space on our bookshelves for some new (Or new to me) books. I think the wife is a little skeptical about the whole thing – we’re trying to get rid of stuff to make room for the incoming baby, not get random people to send us books. But I think she’ll be fine as long as I keep a good ratio of sent-to-received books.