What do you do with books you've read?

I have an arrangement with our assistant at work, who is young, underpaid and as addicted to books as I am. I give her any books that I don't want to keep (usually paperback novels, although I do keep ones that I've particularly loved). She reads them, then puts them on readitswapit to swap for more books (or puts them straight on there if she doesn't like the look of it!). As other posters have mentioned, I don't want a readitswapit account myself because it'll just generate even more books!

There's a bookshop in Alnwick called BarterBooks. You take in a bag of books and they give you credit against choosing more books. We went in the holidays with a big bag of SIL's paperbacks and the children spent the credit on books for themselves.

put a shedload of books into the cellar then have a flood in there but effective!

Scattered round the house.

They get herded up every so often and put back on shelves/returned to whoever lent them to me.

Books I've enjoyed I keep, books I don't I charity shop them. Although I can't bear to part with them sometimes I steel myself, my house isn't that big!

OP, welcome to the wonderful world of the double-stacked bookcase!

You do have to steel yourself a bit, I find (voice of experience here, with several thousand books crammed into the house somehow). There are many books I'll never get rid of because they are somehow part of me and my experiences...even if I haven't re-read them for years. But apart from the keepers, the transient ones are charity-shopped (which is where most came from anyway - I rarely buy new books).

Read It Swap It is great, and I'm really into it, but as someone else pointed out, you do, erm, get another book to replace the one you've got rid of!

And as for binning a book.... Never!!

Keep the ones I'll read again and charity shop the rest. Bookcrossing sounds good but I can honestly say Ive never seen any random books lying around my hometown so im not sure how successful I would be!

There is also bookmooch.com, where you register the books you want to give away, then post them off to people who request them. (I guess this is similar to readitswapit...?).

The only 'problem' that I have found is that you accumulate points for each book you send off and what can you use these points for? To ask for books from others so I find that I am getting almost as many back as I am sending off. But you can also use your points to donate to charity.

Oh yes do babyocho. I think it's moved on a lot since then. However word of warning if you start going to meet ups then you will gain more books than you release.

Bookcrossing has not reduced the number of books in my house overall!

i might just give bookcrossing another go. it was 2005 the last time i tried it!

I find that if I try to sort them out I end up keeping most, as I find ones I haven't read for a while! And then find series of books which are incomplete, and to fulfill my issue in that direction, start a huge Amazon buying solurge, to finish off the series!

I have to keep them, I feel to bereft if I start getting rid. I will need a library at some point, as books are now three deep in some areas! And a new DH as this one gets irritated (not a big reader himself unless it involves DIY research!).

Yes NFK you stick a big label on the front.
It is fun.

Sorry to hear that BabyOcho, I'VE had about a 1 in 5 pick up rate from wild releases, much higher from a bookcrossing zone.

I took part in bookcrossing ages ago and should try it again.

I have had some major culls and also created a reference library in my classroom using many of my books. I still have tree bookcases in the dining room , a shelf in the kitchen , some of dp's storage in his office and will need a bookcase in our bedroom.

Like 5gomad though I cant stop buying new books, I probably have more non fiction which I still read, refer to. The fiction ones all remind me of the time I read them, they are part of my history.

no-one ever picked up my books when I did bookcrossing.

I take the trash books that I would never read again to the local charity shop, or give them to the local library.

Charity shops for ours.

I got into bookcrossing when I found a book on a postbox in a street and went online to register the find. It was all very exciting wondering just who had left the book for 'me' to find.

nkf you register your book online and it gets its own reference code. You then release the book either in a recognised bookcrossing zone (OBCZ) or more often on a park bench, street corner, coffee shop etc. When/if your book is found the person who finds it goes to the website and enters the code. You get an e-mail from bc to let you know your book is traveling.

It's silly, harmless and lots of fun!

give it back to the person who lent it to me .

Keep the classics, the ones that look nice and your favourite authors.

Charity shop for the rest.

oops journey

I'm so pleased 5gomad it's fun when your book is found and you can follow it's journtey. A very friendly community too.

thank you angry was trying hard to remember what it was called. Will be sorting my books out this winter to do that.