Saturday, February 6, 2010

Problem Solved.

Book renting service.

While apartment living has its perks, such as, never having to shovel snow or mow grass. It also forces me to choose my purchases wisely as there is little space for storage. One area of tension in my household is BOOKS. My husband loves to read and re-read his books, so he likes to hang on to them. I like to read them and then pass them on, partially because the pile of books in the corner has become taller than me.

I casually throw around hints, like maybe so and so would like to read the book you just finished or, wouldn’t it be great to be able to donate to the local library. The answer is always the same, and I must say, it gets me every time. He is saving the books because one day we hope to own a country cabin and he envisions a wall of books that offers hours of reading on lazy days.

That being said, he can keep his pile of books but I would like to keep it from growing. So, when I saw BookSwim I nearly jumped for joy. It is essentially a Netflix for books. It works with exactly the same premise. You place the books you are interested in reading into your personal queue and they arrive at your door. You are allowed to keep the books as long as you like and then return it to receive another. They have a database of over 150,000 books and different plans based on how many books you plan on reading. The basic plan starts at $9.95 per month.

Not only is this good for my personal life it is also good for the environment. I love a win-win.

4 comments:

naptress said...

I'm Loving this blog big time:)!!!..u have been bookmarked,lol

Anonymous said...

What about the library? Is that not the same thing, but FREE? You go and check out the books, and can even extend the return date many times over online, therefore allowing you to keep them as long as you like!

Hip Hostess said...

Anonymous you are exactly right. The library is a great option! Living in NY it is not very practical for me because I would have to visit very frequently or carry a bunch of heavy books on the subway. But for other readers it could be a fantastic resource. Thanks.

JD said...

Have you ever heard of bookmooch.com? Its like the same thing, except you can keep the book if you want and its wayyy cheaper! Check it out. I use it all the time.