required reading

Today I valiantly resisted buying two books. They were:

I picked up Atonement because I am tantalised by the idea of re-reading it before the film is released on September 7th, and by the idea of forcing (sorry, suggesting) Phil to read it before then too. The Road simply gets fabulous recommendations from all and sundry. And they were on Buy One Get Half Price at Borders. (Buy One Get One Half Price is the poor successor to Buy Two Get One Free, though saves you from the agony of choosing that third book.)

Sadly, reading is going badly at the moment, due to the following factors:

• Too many books on the go. I used to read nine or ten books all at the same time when I was little. Now more than one at once sounds the death-knell for all of them. I don't have the attention span.
• Newspapers, and more specifically, the Weekend/Family/Magazine supplements
• Bank holidays spent doing housework

And I can't really justify buying more books, when I don't read the ones I've got. Of the 27 books I've already bought this year, I've only read 11. When I've bought only one or two books in a month, I've read all that I've bought, but as soon as I buy more than 3 books, I read only a third of them. I'm horrified, and wonder if I shouldn't have been clearing out my bookcase rather than my wardrobe yesterday.

Anyway, I think that this is the answer. ReadItSwapIt allows you to swap books with other users. You simply choose a book you'd like to read, find out who has a copy, and confirm that you'd like to swap with them. They then look at your library - the list of books you'd be happy to swap with someone - and if they find one that they want to read, they confirm that they're happy to swap with you. Then you stick your book in an envelope, and you should receive your desired book within a week. It's fairly low risk - after all, the most that you can lose is a book that you don't want.

Well, I've signed up, and I've listed some of the books I've bought this year and have no intention of reading any time soon, or ones that I've read and have no desire to keep. The list is pretty short at the moment, but I'll be adding more later tonight, and I'm high on the anticipation of all of the possibilities... I'll keep you posted.