Read It Swap It

I recently joined a free online group here in the U.K. called Read It Swap It and am really happy with it. The idea is simple - all members post books that they want to trade. If you see a book you like on someone's list you submit a request to trade with them. If they're interested in a book on your list, you swap books. Otherwise you just indicate you're not interested in any of their books.

So far I've traded 9 books and I love it because the only related cost is postage, and light books cost as little as 50 pence to ship. I only wish I had all my books being stored back home because I'll probably never re-read them and was only hanging onto them because I didn't know what else to do with them.

It's been especially convenient for travel books as we don't intend to return to anywhere we've been, with the exception of London and Paris. For example, I recently traded our Venice pocket map for a Barcelona guidebook.

I still get most of my books from the library, but it's not very convenient for us to get to the library, the loan periods are short, and you're limited as to how many items you can take out at a time. I really, really miss the Madison public library system, but being able to swap books online is a nice alternative.