Day: January 28, 2009

For the past 5 months, I’ve been addicted to a site that has everything to do with my renewed devotion to reading. If you’ve been a follower of my blog long enough, you’d know that I’ve always complained about the unbelievably high prices of books in the country. That’s been partially resolved when I joined BookMooch, a community on the Web that let’s you give away books you no longer need, and receive the books you want. Just look at this list of some of the books I managed to snag:

• A Thousand Splendid Suns - Khaled Hosseini
• The Kite Runner - Khaled Hosseini
• The Historian - Elizabeth Kostova
• The Time Traveler’s Wife - Audrey Niffenegger
• Water for Elephants - Sara Gruen
• His Dark Materials trilogy - Phillip Pullman
• several books by Alexander McCall Smith

To understand the principle of BookMooch better, perhaps we have to define what mooch is. According to Dictionary.com, to mooch is “to borrow (a small item or amount) without intending to return or repay it” or “to get or take without paying or at another’s expense.” In BookMooch, you can get the book you want at another’s expense (the cost of shipping the book to your home), and you’re under no obligation to return or pay for it.

For every book you put up in your inventory, you get 0.1 point. This kind of point system is the “currency” in BookMooch; you spend and receive point/s when you mooch or give away a book. Say, I mooch a book from Blooey. A point is deducted from my BM wallet while she gets one point richer in the process. However, this one-point transaction is only true when mooching locally. Some, if not most, members of BookMooch do allow international transactions and are willing to send worldwide. Since the cost of shipping books overseas is expensive, the system that BookMooch has compensates for it by giving the giver 3 points, while deducting from the moocher 2 points. You can choose to receive mooch requests only locally, worldwide, or “ask first” (basically, you’re willing to send anywhere, but it depends on your criteria, e.g., book is too heavy to send). And you need not fear or feel disheartened, if you want a book from someone who only sends to his/her country, because the BookMooch Angels are there to help!

I heard about BookMooch a long time ago, but, thinking that there were virtually no local members anyway, I didn’t sign up. Even StumbleUpon always made me stumble upon the site. What finally and successfully compelled me to join was my desperation for a copy of A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess. Nina, a fellow blogger and Plurker (and now BookMoocher), encouraged me and gave me a crash course on shipping books.

BookMooch is my favorite site nowadays, hands down. I can go by a week without blogging or Plurking, but I always have to log in to my BookMooch account, lazily looking around for some books to mooch, or just reading the profile of some moochers. It’s always cool to know that other people are like me. Like what it says on my bio,

For me, there are only 4 good things in life: good booze, good chocolates, good books, and good-natured people to share them with!

Luckily, I found these “good-natured people” in the BookMoochers Pilipinas group on Shelfari, a forum of Filipino members of BookMooch, and a venue for the moochers to share their thoughts and experiences on everything BookMooch. Some discussion on good and bad books can be read there. It’s also the place to be when you want to know about clearance sales or promos of different bookstores. Somehow, they always know about those stuff. (WINK WINK )

I met some of the members first when I was at the Manila International Book Fair last year. But since then, I’ve enjoyed their company at least twice, during the BM Pilipinas get-togethers I attended. MoochParties are always great since I get to mooch a lot of books on the spot. Nothing can top the feeling of accomplishment after digging into boxes and boxes of Triccie’s books, and the frustration that comes after someone stealing your chosen book during the book swap (especially when you know you can’t steal it back!). And need I forget the competitiveness in games like BookMooch Jeopardy? Crazy! One has to wonder how BookMooch and the love for books can solidify the camaraderie between virtual strangers. And that’s actually what I like about BookMooch, apart from getting the books I can never afford or cannot find, I get to meet people with the same interest and talk with them about everything (not just books, but also life in general). (Photo credit: Blooey)

One of our most active members, Patti (who turns out to be a good friend of JP, who I met through the Philippine Web Designers Organization), is a volunteer of Philippines’ first ever BookMooch charity, Quezon City Public Library - Pasong Tamo. Needless to say, this charity is close to everyone’s hearts and is, perhaps, everyone’s most favorite charity. QCPL supports the continuous education and advancement of the public school students and encourages everyone in its surrounding community to read. If you’re already a BookMoocher and have points to spare, it would be great if you could donate a point or two to the charity.

If you’re not on BookMooch yet, why not join now? Just click on the nifty Join button on the navigation bar, fill up the form, add at least 10 books to your inventory, and mooch away! Add me up as a friend, while you’re at it!

Oh, yeah, happy birthday Blooey!!!

PS: Sorry for the frequent site downtimes for the past couple of weeks. You can just imagine my frustration when I want to post something but can’t. Le sigh.