21–30 of 107 posts
I've known Rick since 2001 and was around when he & Todd kicked this off. We've both since moved and it's been a pleasure watching this take off (inter)nationally. In parens b/c I can only verify the "national" part, personally. :) I look for them whenever I visit new places
I've seen several book boxes in Brisbane, Australia, but neither one that I know the location of has been registered as a little free library.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
There are about a half dozen around my neighborhood. My daughter and I constantly move books in and out of them to keep them fresh on our walks. Sometimes they’re great; but, oftentimes I find them to be utterly and completely devoid of anything interesting or different. Almost every single one has some sort of religious spam in it.
I find that they're almost always a perfect cross-section of the local thrift store's books - including the absolutely inordinate number of cookbooks.
If the latter, it’s no wonder folks don’t read as much as they once did.
I’m convinced people pick these over to resell the books in some cities.
But some do seem to just have high turnover. When I moved away from a place in New Orleans I probably took about 100 books to one of these over the course of a month. Most of the time I’d come back a couple days later and find all the books I dropped gone—and entirely different (and not obviously inferior or cheaper) books in the library.
I guess that is expected though as the unwanted ones build up over time
Are these not hell on the books, being outside and all? It's generally pretty high humidity where I live, but I still see these. I'd half expect all the books in them to be moldy.
Are these not hell on the books, being outside and all? It's generally pretty high humidity where I live, but I still see these. I'd half expect all the books in them to be moldy.
Paper can survive in humidity for a few weeks. Think of all the antique stores in old buildings that almost certainly don’t run AC all night in hot and humid environments, and how many books survive from the era before air conditioning.
I love the idea but whenever I look in these it’s always the weirdest books and never anything I’ve heard of I guess that is expected though as the unwanted ones build up over time