Barter Economy Sweeps Book World By Storm!

Yesterday’s “Book Maven” blog at PW Daily, which sees our pal Bethanne Patrick waxing enthusiastic over bookswapping parties, gave me a bit of a chuckle. In it, she writes that her friend “invented” the concept of a party where everybody brings a bunch of books they don’t want and take home a bunch of books they do—”there are always books left over,” she added, “and it’s up to the evening’s host to scoop them all up and keep them, or give them to a library… the latter always wins.” I laughed (but gently) because the concept’s hardly that new, and even Bethanne jokingly admits by the time the comments flow that “it may not be new—but she invented it for me.”

The other reason I laughed is that I’d just gotten the pictures from last month’s GalleyCat bookswap at the Chinatown Brasserie. Dozens of publishing industry pros like HarperCollins associate editor Alyson Daly (left) came to drink and chat and share their literary castoffs—many of which were donated to Housing Works the next morning. (We’d have sent you an invite, Bethanne, but I figured you’d be too busy putting together your new Writers Revealed book club!) We had such a good time that we’re hoping to make it a regular event, and should be announcing the next one sometime this fall.

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