Booklend

Betty Felon · Post by **Betty Felon** » Wed Oct 27, 2004 6:13 am

http://www.booklend.net/

Booklend is a guy with a TON of books who will mail them out to you on request, let you borrow them for as long as you want, and even pay postage BOTH ways.

It's pretty sweet.

c-dog · Post by **c-dog** » Wed Oct 27, 2004 7:56 am

Betty - you are the queen of great links!

Squid · Post by **Squid** » Wed Oct 27, 2004 9:12 am

No way!

This is funny, coz back when the "what are u reading" topic was active, i considered offering to mail that Vintage Chinese Anthology to Grant, coz it's not like I'm actively using it for research or anything.

...but I thought that would be weird.

Happily, I see there's someone out there even weirder than me. woo!

aj · Post by aj » Wed Oct 27, 2004 9:48 am

we could have a bookswap!

Squid · Post by **Squid** » Wed Oct 27, 2004 9:57 am

Word.

I'd have to wait til my first check rolls in, (did I mention I finally got a job?!), to really get involved, but I'm down.

Betty, now's your chance to go buy the new Donna Tartt so I can borrow it. Teehee! ooh, and I've also got the new DFW, like I said, but I don't recall that everyone is as nutso for him as I am.

LoveSickJerk · Post by **LoveSickJerk** » Wed Oct 27, 2004 12:48 pm

I vote bookswap!

Post by **Liesbeth** » Wed Oct 27, 2004 12:50 pm

you could borrow my Donna Tartt copy, but it would cost more to send across the ocean than to buy new...
as much as I love the bookswap idea, unless it's e-book count me out

Post by **grant** » Wed Oct 27, 2004 1:31 pm

I'm definitely up for that bookswap as well -- I already have a $50+ credit at a local used books shop, so I'm very much in a position to trade paperbacks. Or even a couple hardcovers obtained at library sales.

c-dog · Post by **c-dog** » Wed Oct 27, 2004 8:16 pm

Squid wrote:This is funny, coz back when the "what are u reading" topic was active, i considered offering to mail that Vintage Chinese Anthology to Grant, coz it's not like I'm actively using it for research or anything.

...but I thought that would be weird.

Happily, I see there's someone out there even weirder than me. woo!

I also thought about the bookswap while reading that thread! People were mentioning wanting to read books that I think are great - and have sitting on my shelf doing nothing - so I thought why not send them to someone else to enjoy. So, don't worry Squid you aren't the only one who thought about, but then thought it might be weird.

How would this be organized? Should we list books we have and/or reccomend out of our collection then wait for interested readers?

Yarn · Post by **Yarn** » Wed Oct 27, 2004 9:12 pm

Thank you for that link . . . My happiness just increased 7 points.

Squid · Post by **Squid** » Thu Oct 28, 2004 6:57 am

c-dog wrote:So, don't worry Squid you aren't the only one who thought about, but then thought it might be weird.

How would this be organized? Should we list books we have and/or reccomend out of our collection then wait for interested readers?

Yay! I'm not weird! At least, not this time...

Yeah, I can't see that there would be anything wrong with everyone posting a list of the books they have up for grabs, I mean, unless your list is massive and you need to put it up on a server somewhere?

Another part of this puzzle is the postage. Shall we do this the way the guy at booklend does? Does bookrate still exist here in the US? I could've sworn I was reading something about it changing.

Guess I'm off to usps.com now...

This is exciting! Who's got "The Color Purple"? I've been dying for a re-read. WOOOO!

Squid · Post by **Squid** » Thu Oct 28, 2004 12:03 pm

Ahh, the post office. So divine it it's monolithic obtuseness...The only postage calculator with a setting for book rate is the "business calculator". Hmm. I can just go in and ask at some point.

Or maybe...maybe GRANT has an answer!

Grant always has an answer. No, really! Watch!

Betty Felon · Post by **Betty Felon** » Thu Oct 28, 2004 1:14 pm

They call it "Media Mail" now:

Media Mail (Book Rate)

Description

Used for books, film, manuscripts, printed music, printed test materials, sound recordings, play scripts, printed educational charts, loose-leaf pages and binders consisting of medical information, videotapes, and computer recorded media such as CD-ROMs and diskettes. Media Mail cannot contain advertising.

The maximum size is 108 inches in combined length and distance around the thickest part.

Mark each package "Media Mail" in the postage area.

Media Mail Rates

Weight
not over
(pounds)
Rate
1 $1.42
2 1.84
3 2.26
4 2.68
5 3.10
6 3.52
7 3.94
8 4.24
9 4.54
10 4.84
11 5.14
12 5.44
13 5.74
14 6.04
15 6.34
16 6.64
17 6.94
18 7.24
19 7.54
20 7.84
21 8.14
22 8.44
23 8.74
24 9.04
25 9.34
26 9.64
27 9.94
28 10.24
29 10.54
30 10.84
31 11.14
32 11.44
33 11.74
34 12.04
35 12.34
36 12.64
37 12.94
38 13.24
39 13.54
40 13.84
41 14.14
42 14.44
43 14.74
44 15.04
45 15.34
46 15.64
47 15.94
48 16.24
49 16.54
50 16.84
51 17.14
52 17.44
53 17.74
54 18.04
55 18.34
56 18.64
57 18.94
58 19.24
59 19.54
60 19.84
61 20.14
62 20.44
63 21.74
64 21.04
65 21.34
66 21.64
67 21.94
68 22.24
69 22.54
70 22.84

Squid · Post by **Squid** » Thu Oct 28, 2004 2:56 pm

yeah, saw that, but i could've sworn there was some additional bit about bulk mail and...OH SCHNAP! they just meant bulk rate was available should you need it!

duh. sorry. back to compiling my list...

c-dog · Post by **c-dog** » Thu Oct 28, 2004 6:52 pm

So I will be the first to foray into this LW Board experiment. Here is a list of the books that I own and who are crying out for someone to dust them off and read them. Any insterested readers let me know if you want to borrow one and I will swiftly send it off to you..

FICTION
Alexie, Sherman "Reservation Blues"
Alexie, Sherman "The Business of Fancydancing"
Alexie, Sherman "The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven"
Alexie, Sherman "Ten Little Indians"
Atwood, Margaret "Surfacing"
Burroughs, William S. "The Ticket That Exploded"
Cisneros, Sandra "The House on Mango Street"
Coupland, Douglas "Generation X"
Cunningham, Michael "The Hours"
Eggers, Dave " A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius"
Eggers, Dave " You Shall Know Our Velocity"
Eggers, Dave "The Best Non-Required Reading 2003" -Editor
Ellis, Bret Easton "American Psycho"
Ellis, Bret Easton "Less Then Zero"
Erdrich, Louise "Tracks"
Erdrich, Louise "The Last Report on the Miracles of Little No Horse"
Eugenides, Jeffery "The Virgin Suicides"
Frantzen, Johnathan "The Corrrections"
Ginsberg, Allen - "Howl"
Hesse, Herman - "Siddhartha"
Hornby, Nick - "High Fidelity"
Isherwood, Christopher - "The Berlin Stories"
Kerouac, Jack "On The Road"
Kerouac, Jack "The Dharma Bums"
Kincaid, Jamaica - "Annie John"
Kundera, Milan "The Unbearable Lightness of Being"
Kunder, Milan "Identity"
Kundera, Milan "Laughable Loves"
Kundera, Milan "The Farewell Party"
McCabe, Patrick - "The Butcher Boy"
Moody, Rick "The Ice House"
Nersesian, Arthur - "The Fuck-Up"
Phillips, Arthur - "Prague"
Plath, Sylvia - "The Bell Jar"
Pynchon, Thomas - "The Crying of Lot 59"
Seybold, Alice - "The Lovely Bones"
Shteyngart, Gary - "The Russian Debutante"
Silko, Leslie Marmon - "Ceremony"
Thompson, Hunter S. - "Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas"
Toole, John Kennedy - "A Confederacy of Dunces"
Vonnegut, Kurt - "Breakfast of Champions"
Vonnegut, Kurt "Slaughter-House Five"
Vonnegut, Kurt "Hocus Pocus"
Waugh, Evelyn - "Brideshead Revisited"
Waugh, Evelyn "The Loved Ones"
Welsh, Irvine - "Ecstasy"
Welsh, Irvine "Trainspotting"
Welsh, Irvine "The Acid House"
The Believer Mag - Issues 1-7, 14, 16

NON-FICTION

Bourdain, Anthony "Kitchen Confidential"
Bronson, Po "What Should I Do With My Life"
Carroll, Jim "Forced Entries"
Chomsky, Noam "Profit Over People"
Chomsky, Noam "The Chomsky Reader"
Codrescu, Andrei "The Muse is Always Half-Dressed in New Orleans"
Guevera, Che "The Motorcycle Diaries"
Hoff, Benjamin "The Tao of Pooh"
Hoffmann, Abbie "Steal This Book"
Klosterman, Chuck "Sex, Drugs, and Cocoa Puffs"
Schlosser, Eric "Fast Food Nation"
Spong, John Shelby "Rescuing The Bible From Fundamentalism"

LoveSickJerk · Post by **LoveSickJerk** » Fri Oct 29, 2004 4:58 am

An indexing! I have been meaning to do that! It'll have to wait until after halloween though

Post by **grant** » Fri Oct 29, 2004 6:32 am

I think I might be better off just listing subjects -- too many books to list.

Squid · Post by **Squid** » Fri Oct 29, 2004 7:45 am

I'll take your most basic books on the Cultural Revolution.

Basic, Grant, as in, "not in Mandarin".

I'll need lots of pictures. And very small words...

Post by **grant** » Fri Oct 29, 2004 11:58 am

Hmm. Unfortunately, almost everything I know about that came from the web. I did collect some of the best links (along with my own semi-snarky summary) over here: http://www.pantywad.com/index.php/CulturalRevolution

The Morning Sun and the Virtual Museum of the Cultural Revolution are the best of the links.

I *do* have a copy of Red Dust, but that's set after the Cultural Revolution, during Deng's Campaign for Spiritual Purity, right before the "new China" started opening more to the West.