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Set Your Books Free
Books need to be read!
In France, as in many other countries, it has become quite common for villages and towns to place boxes at convenient places so that people can freely exchange books. In this country, you will often find them just off the cobbled squares that lie at the heart of most small towns. Boxes is perhaps a little of an overly simplistic description.
The French love to recycle and I have seen book boxes created out of old clocks, rabbit houses and even a boat.
As someone who spent years shipping boxes of books from one side of the world to another on each of my many moves, I think this is a wonderful idea. After unpacking stacks of books for the umpteenth time, it occurred to me that nearly all of my books were unlikely to get a second reading and I had been putting them through the pain and discomfort of travelling for sentimental reasons rather than practical ones. Some might even suggest that I kept them because I was just too mean to throw them away. The book boxes offered me an opportunity to give these books a second life.
I have come to the conclusion that books are a little like beauty queens. They need lots of attention or they wither and…
