It was made by Dutch students for their research project. I think they deserve a good grade, do you agree?
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16th January 2012It was made by Dutch students for their research project. I think they deserve a good grade, do you agree? 4th January 2012Well, hello there BookCrossing comm! This one really tugged at my heartstrings, for several reasons. It's a catch from Christchurch, where I had the extreme good fortune to go for the BookCrossing Convention of 2009. So many memories... the long, long flight with ![[info]](../../img/userinfo.gif?v=88.3){kind=small} gummihuhn, the stopover in Hong Kong where we searched for good noodle soup (and found it!), the trip around the South Island on a pair of hired motorbikes. futurecatnz welcoming us into her home, ![[personal profile]](http://s.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small} lytteltonwitch showing us around. And of course the Convention itself.So this catch brings back a lot of good memories and happy thoughts. But they're tainted with the knowledge of what happened to the lovely city of Christchurch since. The place where the book was found, the Arts Centre, is closed now because of earthquake damage and may never reopen. So, yeah. And then there is the entry itself. Go on, read it and you'll see what I mean. This is really the kind of thing that keeps me going, as a BookCrosser. To me, this is what it's all about. Using a book as a means to reach out to another person we don't even know. Current Mood:
 contemplative31st December 2011Under the cut are all the books I read, listened to, or started but didn't finish this year. It may well be a personal best. All links are BookCrossing books. ( Read more... ) What'd you read this year? 17th October 2011I know there are some older bookcrossers here who don't always check into the forums frequently. I'm re-energizing the International Tiara Sweeps after a three year hiatus when the last winner stopped being active in bookcrossing. Come join in the fun! http://www.bookcrossing.com/forum/10/46 18th August 2011Alice Bliss broke my heart. The story is a simple one: Alice Bliss is the elder of two daughters in a close family. Her beloved father is sent to Iraq when his National Guard unit is called to active duty. What follows is the story of how the family he left behind learns to cope with his absence. Laura Harrington allows the reader to enter into the minds of Alice, her family and some friends. The love is palpable, though individual emotions are not always understood or recognized by those concerned. Having lived through horrific loss, I understand the importance of clinging to hope and clutching at ritual. Alice struggles with her father's absence, trying so hard to hold on to what they did together, or to keeping him alive in her life. Part of me screamed that no one in her school, besides her friend Henry, seemed to know her father was serving in Iraq. That seemed so wrong, especially since it was oh, so likely that the outcome in this case might not be a happy reunion. But Alice Bliss is about positive outcomes, about digging deep and finding reserves in yourself and those you love. I found the characters in this novel extremely well drawn. I wonder if that is due, in part, to the fact that the author did a stage production of which the book is an offshoot. When you play a character, your psyche absorbs so much. Ms Harrington was able to translate this into the novel. I also marveled at the beautiful letters Alice's father wrote to his wife and daughters. I've recently been going through letters of my family, and wish that some of them had some of the eloquence and elegance of the letters penned by Matt. The author has started a wonderful campaign to track where Alice Bliss travels around the world. The book I received was one of the inaugural books sent out on the where's Alice Bliss initiative. I took my copy down to the Battery and White Point Gardens, here in Charleston and took pictures. It seemed a good setting, as The Battery was also a focal point in another war that tore at the hearts of families. There were some moments in the last bit of this book that were so evocative, so beautiful, that I had to pause to absorb them. But I don't want to give spoilers, so I shall refrain for now. Though there are tough emotions in the novel, I ultimately feel it is one of hope. And, I feel it realistic, timely, informative, and well-crafted. Happy ending are not always what we imagine. They are what we make with the hand we are dealt. Pictures: http://www.flickr.com/photos/bookczuk/6 http://www.flickr.com/photos/bookczuk/6 28th April 2011Recently I met with Kelsey Osterman, a reporter for Street Sense. This biweekly newspaper is written, published, and sold mainly by homeless and formerly homeless people. Ms. Osterman's editor had found a BookCrossing book, and she contacted BCinDC about doing an interview. We met up with her a few weeks ago, and the article is the cover story for the latest issue. If you're in the Washington area, purchase a copy for only $1 from one of their vendors. Otherwise, you can read the article here: Not All Those Who Wander Are Lost. 25th April 2011Hi, I just thought I'd introduce myself. I'm 28 years old and I live in Boston, MA. I am relatively new to Bookcrossing and only have a few books up on my shelf at the moment. I still haven't quite figured out how to do the wish list yet. If I could figure it out, the first author I would put on is Emile Zola. Here is my Bookcrossing link: http://www.bookcrossing.com/mybooks Glad to be here! ETA: Figured out the wish list and added some books =D 19th April 2011 This weekend (actually, also Thursday and Friday) I was in Washington D.C. attending the BC in DC BookCrossing 10th Anniversary convention. I had a fabulous time catching up with old friends, making new friends, and touring the sights in Washington. The organizers did an amazing job! I released a duffel bag's worth of books and managed to come home with fewer books than I left with. Photos from the weekend are on Flickr. 11th April 2011 I just registered a pile of books for the BC in DC BookCrossing convention. 4th February 2011Fares Aoun, author of Jerusalem Spring asked me to review his book. I am unable to do so at this time, but explained about bookrings, and he was interested in having his book ringed. If interested, please post here and PM me you interest and mailing preferences. In order for this to be international, we'd need someone(s) to send it overseas and back. If interested, please respond via BookCrossing: http://www.bookcrossing.com/forum/20/45 Here's what he wrote me about the book: "My novel, Jerusalem Spring, was recently published, and I would be honored to have you read and consider reviewing it. Please let me know where to send the hard copy or digital version of the book. Jerusalem Spring is the story of an unlikely friendship between two men, a white prison warden named Scott and an African-American inmate named Joe, in a segregated prison in the American south. The book draws a parallel between the fight to end discrimination during the civil rights era and the situation in modern-day Jerusalem. The novel explores the tensions in the relationship between Scott and Joe and the other people in their lives. Scott’s wife has become unhappy with the segregation in their town. New inmates arrive and challenge the status quo. Joe becomes less reliable as Scott’s informant and the warden begins to question his motives as he tries to redeem himself in the eyes of those he cares about. Scott and Joe struggle to connect and overcome the obstacles to their friendship despite prison riots, bus explosions, and recruitment efforts by fundamentalist groups bent on destruction. The characters’ lives intersect across racial, religious, political, and geographic boundaries, ultimately delivering a message of hope overcoming prejudice as the story transitions in a surprising twist to modern-day Jerusalem." 26th January 20116th January 2011I dont have time for bookcrossing myself thanks to uni, work, theatre company, stunt work, voluntary work taking up every waking moment, but maybe some of the people who do, would be interested in some of this lot. I asked the local thrift shops and they only want "nice easy novels for mature ladies" so it would be the bin if they dont go... Xposted. Secondary school level books: GCSE Biology: Longman Revise Guide GCSE British & European History: Longman Revise Guide GCSE Biology: Letts Study Aids: Revise GCSE French- Letts Revise/ Gloria Richards GCSE History 1750- 1986: Letts Revise/ Peter Lane GCSE Mathematics: Longman Revise Guide (maths) Guide to "To Kill A Mockingbird " Letts Study Aids GCSE AQA GCSE Science - Revision & Classroom companion 2006 GCSE Mathematics (Higher Level) GCSE AQA Anthology Poems from Heany,Clark, pre 1914 CGP GCSE Additional Science -higher level Longman Study Guide GCSE Science Letts Study Guide: A Level Economics - Ray Powell 1997 A Level Modern History: Letts Study Aids A level and AS level Longman Revise Guide FRENCH Assessment Tests in English for Key Stage 2 (age 11) Directions 2: reading skills (childrens schoolbook) Exploring Graphs (Able Children) Mathematics textbook Mental Maths for ages 9 -10 (textbook) Key Stage 3 Science - life processes & living things Key Stage 3 English (Letts Educational) textbook DIY/ Interior Design: Bathrooms Design Styles - Marks & Spencers Home (NEW) Living Rooms Design Styles Marks & Spencers Home (NEW) The Illustrated Guide To Home Needlecrafts The Dairy Book Of Home Management Creative Interior Design 347 Woodworking Patterns Soft Furnishings For Your Home/ Sharyn Skrabanich Books on teaching and schools (smaller books) Modern Practice in the infant school - Lesley webb Involving Parents in Nursery and Infant Schools Overcoming Dyslexia - Dr Beve Hornsby Managing Finance In Schools- Blanchard/ Lovell/ Ville Random reference Guinness: Boxing: The Records (1987 ed) Ian Morrison A Point of View - Barry Took (TV biography) hardcover Peter Carey: The True History Of The Kelly Gang Understanding your Irritable Bowel Anatomy and Physiology Applied To Nursing Firefighting: A Pictorial History - Neil Wallington Formula One: A Complete Race By Race Guide (1997) Great Walks of Britain: 38 Glorious Walks Plymouth Diocesan Yearbook 2004 The Videomaker Handbook (film making book) Windowbox Gardening by David Joyce British Equestrian Directory 1993- 94 The Wonders Of Science - 1965 hardcover book 1st January 2011All links are to BookCrossing journal entries. How'd your reading go this year? Books Read in 2010:( Read more... ) 24th December 2010Thousands and thousands of free books. Tours of the largest library in the world. A handful of different release walks. Trips to battlefields, the national zoo, historic towns, Poe landmarks, and a local book festival. A literary museum hopper hunt. Author speakers. Tons of fun games and great prizes. Socializing with other BookCrossers. You won’t want to miss all the excitement at the 10th Anniversary BookCrossing Convention in Washington, D.C. on April 15-17, 2011. Registration is open now for only $150 and there’s a payment plan available. The price increases on January 1, 2011 so register now to save money! http://tinyurl.com/bcindcregistrati Once you register, you’ll be able to reserve your spot in some of the activity choices and purchase extras. If you register in December, you’ll also get 10 free raffle & prize tickets in this limited time offer. If you have any questions, feel free to contact us: http://tinyurl.com/bcindccontact 18th December 2010The Early Bird Rate for the 2011 BookCrossing Convention registration expires as the clock ticks over into the new year! That’s just two weeks away. We are on Eastern Standard Time here in D.C. and so that is when the change will become effective. If you would like to qualify for the lower $150 rate you must do 2 things:
There are some special deals available now on the website: http://tinyurl.com/bcindcdeals In order to qualify you must submit your PayPal payment or postmark your check within 3 business days of submitting your registration form. Don’t get disqualified from some great deals by procrastinating on sending in the payment. (Please note: if you submitted your forms prior to December 1 and you have already paid, you will be grandfathered in and are qualified for promotions regardless of the length of time it took you to pay). What are you waiting for? We want to see YOU at the convention in April, so register today! http://tinyurl.com/bcindcregistrati 8th October 20105th October 2010Planning to attend the 2011 BookCrossing Convention in Washington, D.C.? You're in luck, because convention registration is now open! You can register for your convention pass & for additional extras on the website. With that comes a brand new registration FAQ page, plus several additions to the general convention FAQ. Other new goodies:
Stay tuned for more and we'll see you in April! 4th October 2010Early bird registration is now open for the 2011 BookCrossing Convention in Washington, DC. The convention will be held 15-17 April 2011. Register by 31 December for the lowest registration fees and to ensure that you reserve a spot to help celebrate BookCrossing's 10th birthday! To register, visit: http://www.bcindc.zoiks.org/?page_id=25 8th September 201028th August 2010Free labels are once again available. We also now have the option to buy customised labels with our own text and pictures!! Because the price isn't obvious, (they are going to fix that), I took the liberty of posting the information here. You can order different designs. For example, you can get 12 different designs for $7.95 "Select the quantity you'd like from the table below. Non-numbered bookplates are blank in the BCID field. Pre-numbered bookplates include a unique BCID on each bookplate registered to you, ready to be placed in a book. Then, the first time the book is journaled, it is registered with that BCID. This is the most efficient way to label and bookcross a book. Order multiple singles to receive quantity discounts. Did you know? Every custom bookplate unit comes with a FREE Official BookCrossing Sticker AND a Tiny Sticker. Using these on the cover and the spine of your book increases the chances of it being caught and released again. Pre-Numbered Non-Numbered 1: $1.00 1: $1.00 12: $7.95 12: $7.95 25: $16.95 25: $16.95 50: $25.95 50: $25.95 100: $39.95 100: $39.95 Here is the post announcing this. "Take a look at the label page (under store) for all sorts of free printable labels as well as those you can order from the store. Even custom made ones. http://www.bookcrossing.com/labels http://www.bookcrossing.com/labels Despite a rough start with the push, things seem to be going a bit better now. Matt's still working on a couple of things (not on this list) so he asked me to post the list for him. Here's a basic over view of the high-points of this update. The new label creator for making custom made labels is now available in the store. Some pages have been updated, most notably the labels page, wings page There's a new home page, with easier instructions/information for a visitor, plus easier access into the main site for a visitor Bug keeping some of our members from fully accessing the site has been smooched. The PM system has been restored so that users who choose not to receive PMs will not receive them and that in order to send a PM you must have yours turned on. The verbage stating "This member prefers not to be contacted about trades" is back Menus were reorganized and updated; new page content for each main section There are some German language text edits The journal picture permission issue where some journal pics could not be found is fixed. Some access for Support and Administrators has been returned. If someone friends you, you'll receive a message that they have friended you. The rest is up to you. Also: A new development cycle for identifying, testing, retesting and repairing problems has been put in place. It will enable the team to work more consistently, rather than putting out brush fires. New tech team members have been oriented and assigned various responsibilities, which frees up Matt, too. Search restoration is the primary focus of the first cycle. (Matt says he's done some preliminary work but wants Ardik's expertise to help tweak it out There is now a tester/employee whose only job is to check the site on various browsers and OS configurations. A launch will happen every 2-4 weeks after bugs are fixed in the current cycle. Each iteration/cycle will have identified items to work on. These are the only things worked on during this time UNLESS A MAJOR bug is found. http://www.bookcrossing.com/forum/9/440 5th August 2010The tech team slipped in a patch on us last night, but we don't have *all* the details as of yet. For now we know that: 1. Mark all Forums Read is back 2. The currently open message at the top is highlighted in the thread below, to help you keep track of where you are. (Available in all thread views) 3. The ability to delete your own posts has been fine-tuned so that you can only completely delete posts that haven't been replied to. 4. The calendar that's used to enter your birth date in your profile now has a drop-down box for the year, so you don't have to click through all those months anymore. (Yes!) (Note that though it looks like it only goes back to 2000, if you select the earliest year available, it will work its way back in groups of ten. We'll see if they can get that a little clearer, esp since it goes back beyond dates the site can recognize. More as we know it) 5. In the condensed view, Next Unread and Previous Unread feature is back. 6. And in the list of your recent postings, that can be found from the link on your profile, it's now possible to see which of your forum postings have gotten direct replies. 7. View of forum threads is not limited only to those active within the past month, but should be available further back http://www.bookcrossing.com/forum/25/43 3rd August 2010People who have bogus information as a location or nothing at all seem to have problems in that the site can't figure out their location to start them off from or to pull up their short cut lists. The site just doesn't know what to do with locations that are things like "That great blue green ball called earth" "The big library in the sky" "Here, there and everywhere" It reads them the same as the much more benign but equally system messing blank. It also interferes with the ability to edit profiles, it seems -- invalid locations (as illustrated above) may be in your profile when you go to edit it, but the site can't process it and reads your location as blank/empty. It seems to throw a spanner in some of the works. There may be another bug at work there, too, but certainly the self created locations or lack of a location aren't helping the system interpret your account. If you're worried about being identified by your location (you live in a small town or something), try choosing the nearest Big City or Town to you and using that. It may help the site pull up a location and save your settings so you don't have to re-enter each time. More as we know it. http://www.bookcrossing.com/forum/25/43 30th July 2010We've just heard from Matt, and while we don't know in detail what he's working on, there are some things worth telling. He's been sweating over some bugs in the release process, that made it impossible for some of our members to release books. He found and fixed several, and implemented the fixes in the most recent patch, that is being tested as we speak. There have been some improvements on the Forum, that you may already have noticed. The pale yellow highlight for threads you have posted is back, and in Condensed mode, there is a Next and a Previous link. Yesterday, members reported being unable to use the Forums when they were not logged in. That should be fixed now. The tech team and management are currently looking at ways to make the site, or a preview of the site, visible to not-yet-members or not-logged-in folks, who wish to view the inner workings of the site. Matt's also been busy fine-tuning the release process, by eliminating the need to scroll to the proper spot of the page for each step of the release process. This new feature is already live: I've just tried it and it's sweeeet. Go take it for a spin! Some steps back, also: As of July 26th, the tech team is temporarily suspending the ability of members to delete books from their shelves. A secondary problem, related to the cache of the site not clearing, has caused duplicates of books/BCIDs to appear on shelves. Many members were inadvertently deleting books completely, only realizing it when they went to make a release note, and the BCID was gone. Once the cache problem is completely solved (it's proven to be tougher to replicate and thus to clear), the ability to delete a book that has not been released or has not been journalled on by another reader will be restored. Similarly: with the move to internationalize the site, characters that had not previously been available could be used in new screennames, but were causing some problems in processing and site navagation. So for the time being, this will be suspended too, but will be reimplemented when the problems are fixed. As always, more as we know it. http://www.bookcrossing.com/forum/25/43 27th July 2010As of today* (July 26), the tech team is temporarily suspending the ability of members to delete books from their shelves. A secondary problem, related to the cache of the site not clearing, has caused duplicates of books/BCIDs to appear on shelves. Many members are inadvertently deleting books completely, only realizing it when they've then gone to make a release note, and the BCID is gone. Once the cache problem is completely solved (it's proven to be tougher to replicate and thus to clear), the ability to delete a book that has not been released or has not been journalled on by another reader will be restored. Support will still have the ability to delete books for you. As always, in cases where it's not a false duplicate of the same BCID from the cache problem, "recycling" of BCIDs for another book is encouraged. As always thank you for your patience. * To be activated later this evening PDT http://www.bookcrossing.com/forum/25/43 |
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