Book circle

[ironphoenix]

Have any of you done something like this before, and would you be interested in doing so in the future?

A group of folks (say, 6 people) agree on (say) 6 hardcover books to buy, and share the cost. Each person gets one, reads it, and passes it to the next person in rotation. Once everybody has read each book, they are auctioned among the people or donated to a library; maybe have a minimum bid of 25% of the original purchase price, and if nobody really wants to keep it, give it to the library. Proceeds of the auction can be divided among the other group members, or donated to a charity.

I think a book every 6 weeks to 2 months would work well for this; faster readers can interleave other books on their own, of course. The rotation doesn't have to be "synchronous": each person can hand off books when they're done, tracking them online so that nobody ever has more than 2 books in hand at a time.

Comments

[con-girl.livejournal.com]

I'd be willing to consider it but I suffer from an intense need to keep books neat so I don't know that I could handle a system where we didn't get rid of them in the end. However, I also think paperbacks could be included and/or price sharing (adding the costs and spitting it because not all books cost the same.

[ironphoenix.livejournal.com]

The default is to get rid of the books at the end; people only keep them if they bid in the final auction.

My thought with hardcovers is that they stand up better to repeated reading, are pleasant to read, and are much-loved by the libraries that get them at the end.

Cost-equalizing is assumed!