I’ve been deep in a book the last few days.� I haven’t been able to put it down and, frankly, I’m thrilled Mikey and Nicholas are bathed and fed.� Fun reads notwithstanding, I had to give my fellow book lovers a heads up on the latest site devoted to bibliophiles.� Book worms, meet Book Swim.� Have you heard of it?� Am I late to the game with this one?
Book Swim is to books what Netflix is to movies.� From what I gather on the website, you pick out a rental plan based on your estimated rate of reading.� You order your books (there are no additional shipping fees for plans with 2 or more books a month) and get busy when they arrive.� Once you are done, you ship them back, again without paying shipping.� If you love a book too much to part with it, keep it.� You can pay for it with a click of the button on the Book Swim site.� From what I understand, they even carry textbooks.
I’m still on the fence about Book Swim, mainly because I am terrified of the commitment monthly payments require.� It’s the same reason I don’t have memberships to Netflix or any of the other online movie rental sites.� Still, I know sites like Netflix can save avid movie watchers a great deal of money.� I assume Book Swim offers the same benefit and wanted to pass it on to people who are able to make a decision without complicated decision matrices, actuarial data, and p values.
{Thanks to the very rad Bookilicious blog for the heads up.� I’m too busy reading without restraint to find such cool things.}
Hmm…. when I hear about a book I want to read I go to my library’s website and request it. If it is a very popular book it might take a while for it to arrive, but I always have something coming in and more than a few books on my nightstand. Maybe I am lucky ~ our library is part of an interlibrary loan program with other libraries from all over our area ~ I live in the suburbs of Chicago.
With Bookswim you wouldn’t have to make the trip to return and pick up, but with three school aged kids at home we are there quite frequently anyhow!( We actually live within walking distance of our library and do that when it’s not so darn COLD!) I think if I didn’t go to the library so often this would be a very cool service that I would be willing to pay for.
Oh, I meant to ask… what book are you reading??
We do netflix because we otherwise don’t like to buy movies. I mean, I don’t ever, ever buy movies because I don’t like to watch them more than once. I’ve bought about one movie a year probably (excluding kid movies). But with books, I like to reread them. Or reference back to a certain item in them. So this seems like a great idea in theory, but most books I want to buy to keep around. I have book issues though.
I used to just buy books because I thought I’d re-read them often. But then I found myself picking up the latest best-sellers at Costco, reading them, and then feeling slightly disappointed and left with a book I knew I would never read again. Then I learned that you can request books from the library online and get an e-mail when they come in. They’re placed on a hold shelf and I can just pick them all up at once. So now when I hear about a good new book, I put it on my request list and just wait for it to come in. It’s rare that I’m without a book at any point, I just may not get to read the hottest book right then and there.
Sometimes I’ll get a book from the library, flip through the first chapter, and not want to read any more. Makes me happy that I didn’t buy it first!
Our library is within walking distance and also on my way home from work. I’m not sure if it would be as convenient if it was farther away.
I do Blockbuster by Mail because I like just dropping the DVD in the mail when we’re done. And I like the flexibility of being able to exchange it for another movie at the actual store if we want to watch something on a whim.
I too am a library gal. I can request/reserve whatever I want online and even the most popular (and new) titles never seem to take that long to come in. Luckily I live pretty close to our library so I don’t have a problem getting there. I can see Book Swim being a good idea for people who don’t live near a good library though. Like you, I am also a commitment phobe when it comes to by the month type of stuff.
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Library here as well. I tend to request an exorbitant amounts of books online and then read them as quick as they come in. It’s fabulous. You can even renew books online these days, so the only time I leave the house is to pick up and drop off. Such a time saver!
Oh and seriously how can you start a post with “I�ve been deep in a book the last few days. I haven�t been able to put it down and, frankly, I�m thrilled Mikey and Nicholas are bathed and fed.” and not tell us what it is. That’s like dangling a carrot in front of a starving rabbit caught in Mr. McGregor’s garden!
I think avid book readers are going to be library people. We read way too much to be able to afford all the books we would read otherwise, and from a practical point of view, there is the storage issue!
I’m waiting to finish the book to see if I like it enough to do a post on it. It isn’t terribly intellectual (it’s a love story!) and from a new-to-me genre. I must ponder if I want to admit online in the same week I displayed back fat that I am a hopeless romantic at heart who loves a good happy ending.
Hmmmm… who knew? Apparently, not I. I think it’s a lovely idea … I just don’t know if it’s for me. The older I get the more I have issues with *ahem* stains on borrowed books. It’s unnerving and, quite frankly, disruptive. I can’t concentrate on the story with a brown spot staring back at me – before I know it my imagination has COMPLETELY gone wild, I’m completely ruined, and have no clue what I just read. Probably shouldn’t be okay sharing this little neurosis with total strangers, should I? Yeah, that’s what I thought. Sigh.
Ok time to delurk on this one. :0) Hi! I’ m an avid reader. As in a lot of reading. I buy all of my books. I don’t care for the library. Here’s why. I can’t get past the notion that everyone in the world has touched those books. They cough on them, get their personal DNA all over them and gross me out. No thanks. I find it to be disgusting. I buy my books and I love that I can go on ebay and re-sell them, give them to friends who might enjoy them etc. I do buy used books occasionally but I take them home and wipe them off well. I know I could wipe library books but a library book has been touched by dozens of people, unlike a typical used book, maybe touched by only 1 person. I only buy used books that look like they’ve been read once, twice tops.
I’m with Amy above. gross.
I find this BookSwim to be expensive (probably due to shipping costs in part) and imagine all the people touching those books. No thanks. I can’t wait for ebook rental technology…I’d love to rent a book for 48 hours for say 2.99. Us avid readers would be rewarded for reading fast and ebooks aren’t physically covered in germs.
p.s. love your blog. ;-)
I never joined this site because it seemed a little expensive to me. I only read about three books a month so it doesn’t really pay off for me. Plus, going to the book store is a true luxury for me. Some people get massages or manicures, I go to the bookstore. I’m really loving Half Priced Books right now. I can go in there and get three or four books sometimes for the regular price of one book. And I really like sharing books with my friends. We enjoy passing books around to each other. I just don’t think I could stand putting a book in the mail drop. I’m pretty sure my heart would break in two!
Oh and I just read your comment up there…..now you HAVE to tell us what you are reading. You can’t give us that bit of information and then leave us hanging!
Interesting idea, but it seems overpriced. I know books would be heavy to ship but they aren’t very expensive through media mail. I personally LOVE to use paper back swap. Feel free to use my referral link if you want to sign up ;)
Join our book club and swap used books for FREE – PaperBackSwap.com
and you don’t just trade paperback, I usually request hardback only. If your willing to wait while books sit on your wish list you almost always get what you want, and you can set conditions, like no smoking, no pets, etc. I request books that are in near-perfect to brand-new condition and have NEVER had any bad ones come my way.
I use paperback swap! I have the same parameters, too. :) PBS is perfect for those books you are interested in but don’t necessarily want to spend the money to buy. I try not to get skeeved out thinking about the people who touched the books. I completely understand where Amy and Kristy (Hi!) are coming from.
Toi–for me the bookstore is a fun night out, too. I absolutely love everything about it and I can’t find much better than cracking open a new book. LOVE the smell of books.
Oh, this could be dangerous. I need more reasons to get off the couch, not to stay on it! Especially with a continuous supply of books and a cup of tea…so tempting!
This is why I love your blog, always something useful. I hadn’t heard of Bookswim, but it may be perfect for me! I love both Netflix for movies and Booksfree.com for audio books, so this is right up my alley.
And, you GOTTA tell us: what book are you reading?
I think for the right person, the person without a library or bookstore close by, an avid reader, this is a good idea. I used to only BUY my books until the past couple of years of tightening our belts. I use the library to save money but I also love going to the bookstore. Dilemma. Now I use my iPhone and an APP called RedLaser to scan the books at the bookstore I want to find the lowest price. Surprise, it’s not always Amazon. I have found some great buys at random booksellers on line. You can use the app for almost anything with a bar code but I use it most with books. For me it’s a win/win. I get to keep the book and pay the absolute lowest price. When I didn’t have an iPhone I would only buy a book if I knew I was going to want to keep it after reading it.
***Sidenote: I have a good friend who is so creeped out by others touching her books that she won’t even take a book that a friend has read and wants to pass on. She has to buy her books brand new. She has five kids so maybe there are enough germs floating around that house.
That’s a very cool site, wish I had though of if. I can barely get through a magazine (which you know because you have two kids as well), but I need to read more.
Oh this looks vedy interesting indeed….
I used bookswim for a year or so and loved it! I live in a location that has the world’s worst library – no selection whatsoever. I thought the price was very reasonable – especially if you are a fast reader. I believe that you are just limited to the number of books at a time (not say, 3 books each month). I only gave it up because I got too busy with school and found myself keeping the same books for months. Another downfall was that I would forget to update my queue or move things around so books would arrive that I wasn’t really in the mood to read. All in all though it’s a great service!
Oh, sweet!
Thanks for the heads up on this one!
I loved my bookswim this summer but I got rid of it when classes started because I spent so much more time reading those books than my books for class haha
Just stumbled across your site. I’m a numbers girl and am constantly looking at wedding and nesting pictures to figure out what I want because I don’t think visually. The fact that you made a joke about p-values means I’ll be coming back to your site again and again. Thanks for speaking my language!