Valet Reader

The Bay Area Free Book Exchange

What a gem, what a gem. I suppose calling this a “book store” may be a bit of a misnomer seeing as this place isn’t exactly a “store.” It’s more akin to a library but you just don’t have to return the books. You see, what this place does is giveaway books, a lot of books. To be a little more precise as of 12/20/09 they have given away a total of 31,461 books. And yes, they were all given away for free, to be kept for eternity and ever after. Unless of course once your done with them you choose to re-donate them (I highly recommend this).

The Bay Are Free Book Exchange works like this: Run by a cooperative of book store owners / lovers o books, books are collected from stores and people and then put on shelves. Those books which are donated that the store believes may be worth some money are then listed on e-bay. The others, well they go on the shelves and are given away.

While I was there I must have seen at least 15 boxes of books yet to be sorted. Get this, in order to take home books, you don’t even have to donate any. Just stroll on in, browse, pick out books, take to counter, have them stamped and leave. But wait, there is a limit of the number you can take , you can’t be selfish, you gotta leave some books for the next people. Then again if you reach that number, I’d be mighty impressed. Per visit, you are entitled to take home 50 books, yes that’s a 5 – 0 as in fifty. Yeah, I didn’t come close.

Bowhunting Dear (love at first sight)

Let’s not get carried away and start thinking that all the books on the shelves are worthy of being on your bookshelf.  Some are outright ridiculous and may very well sit on the shelves forever like James Clavell’s Gai-Jin and Dan Brown’s Deception Point. While others I’m sure will be gobbled up quite quickly, such as Bowhunting Deer, Edward’s Auto-Pedia (1984) and Cowboy Feng’s Space Bar and Grille which are of course now on my bookshelf. I saw quite a few Ann Rice, Nelson DeMille, Dan Brown and Neal Stephenson novels to give a small sampling. This only scratches the surface of authors but these few are widely known so I thought I would throw their names around. Overall the books seemed eerily reminiscent of those I found at the Big Book Sale back in late September, only fewer in number.

The store is even broken down into categories/genre to make searching a wee bit easier. I’m not going to lie, I think some of their volunteers were a little unfamiliar with some of the books while shelving. Regardless, it’s nice to have a general idea of where to look and come on the books are free so how much can a person complain.

Of course the only issue I have with this store is it’s location. I can easily understand why it is where it is. I can only imagine how inexpensive it must be to be located in El Cerrito. That’s not to say it’s cheap, but I’m sure it’s less expensive than SF. The odds of me making frequent trips are slim, but if I’m ever looking for free and incredibly interesting books I may just shoot on over.

Ooooh books!

Ooooooh, more books!

"Frontpage 98" umm, rad, I could use that.

Amazing variety. "America's Top Japanese Restaurants," "Reveal the Real You" (a self help book for teens), "Patriot Games," Baby & Child...," "South Beach Diet," and "The Celestine Prophecy"

The "Romance" section, yes, seriously all those books are romance novels.

Oh, and I thought I’d share with you all the books I picked up:
Gai-Jin by James Clavell
Snow Crash by Neal Stephenson
Cowboy Feng’s Space Bar and Grille by Steven Brust
Edward’s Auto-Pedia (1984)
Bowhunting Deer courtesy of the National Field Archery Assn.
Verbatim by Erin Mckean (interestingly enough there is a sticker on this one that says “From the library of…” wonder if I should give the nice lady a call?)
Biz Dev 3.0 by Brad Keywell
Deception Point by Dan Brown