Wednesday, February 4, 2009

What is Pass it to the Right?

So I was thinking about all the books on my "to read" list and thought about all the Christian bloggers that likely have similar lists. It then occurred to me how nice it would be to trade books around allowing us to share ideas and save money.

What if there was a place where we could recommend books, write up our reviews, and pass the books to the right? The difference between this kind of deal and a standard library is that people who choose to participate would be encouraged to write notes in the books. I almost called this "writing in the margin" because of that.

I know some people are purist and have had a heart attack right now thinking about defiling a book, but the rest of you are looking for your multicolored highlighter pack already.

I love books and I have a pretty slim budget for books. This means that used book stores are my best friends. I tried to buy all of my text books used because of the money savings, but also because often there were some really cool notes written in the books. "Prof says this is wrong and should read ..." that sort of thing.

Wouldn't it be cool if we just kept passing the annotated books along. "This chapter really kicked my butt." "This phrase pulled me out of the guilt spiral." "I was praying about this just this morning so I feel like God heard me."

I don't know, maybe it is just me. If you think this is a cool idea to please comment. I'm interested in opening this to multiple writers and getting books up. If this goes over well then I'll try to get a more efficient platform for book sharing setup.

9 comments:

  1. I love this idea! Though I have to wonder how many books we'd have in common. I mean other than 'Blue Like Jazz' (which I borrowed from the library) all of the nonfiction books I read are specifically aimed towards women and child raising...

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  2. Pretty good idea. However my books typically start out with me underlining/highlighting/writing notes a lot at the beginning. Then I get too sucked in and don't write anything for a while. Then I read something that blows my mind so I have to do something to it. Repeat. This typically means that there are crazy markings on every couple chapters with absolutely nothing in between. But I like the idea.

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  3. Luckygirl,

    That would be the point. I have books you don't and you have books I don't. Mostly I would be open to reading things on raising kids since I have 4 running around my feet. Well actually 2 run one skips everywhere and the 4th doesn't even crawl yet but he is going to soon. Yesterday he got up on his hands and knees like he was going to crawl but it was an accident or something because he freaked out when I realized he couldn't do anything or get back down. Very funny. Other people might be more interested in books you have and love and there may be more books that others have you would want to read.

    Andrea,
    Thanks

    Ryan B.
    Hey we all mark up books differently. Some people don't mark them at all.

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  4. First, I need to tell you that I am breaking my internet fast to comment on here. But I still check my gmail from my blackberry and was very intrigued. Jeff and Tam and my hubby and me are always swapping books. I've got an extra copy of "I became a Christian and all I got was this lousy T-shirt" by Vince Antonucci I could send your way. It's an easy read, but it's got some really great testimony in there. Other books I've read over the past year that I really liked:

    Simple Church by Thom S. Rainer & Eric Geiger
    The God Who Smokes by Timothy J. Stoner
    The Tangible Kingdom by Hugh Halter & Matt Smay
    Search & Rescue by Neil Cole (still reading that one)
    Crazy Love by Francis Chan (still reading that one too)
    The World as I remember it by Rich Mullins
    The Reason for God by Tim Keller
    The Prodigal God by Tim Keller
    Letters from a Nut by Ted L. Nancy (a must read)


    Books on the nightstand waiting to be read:

    No Perfect People Allowed by John Burke
    The Shack (I'm not sure how I feel about reading that one. I'm gonna finish re-reading the NT before I crack that open)

    Jeff ordered several copies of Under the Overpass which I'm really looking forward to reading. I've got a few copies of "The Purpose Driven Life if you're interested (cuz I'm sure you haven't read THAT one. HA!)

    I don't ususally write in my books, but I tend to underline stuff.

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  5. Katdish,

    I feel bad that I made you break your internet fast.

    hmmm, the Purpose Driven Life ... yeah I only have 3 copies of that myself including a journal or something that goes with it that I never used.

    Look like a list going with the others. I've read a couple, heard of a couple, but there are some I've never heard of. Sound interesting though.

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  6. I'm intrigued and would be interested in participating if you get the process going. I have lots of books I can read, mark up, and pass on, but not many of them are recent releases, and not all of them are Christian books. (Several are, however, parenting books!)

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  7. This sounds like a great idea. Good Luck.

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