Redressing the book balance
Poorly attended meetups seem to be becoming a trend at the moment – last night saw only me, lytteltonwitch, awhina, and meerkitten in attendance yet again. Probably just a combination of the time of year (who needs yet another social event in their calendar in December?) and the lack of concerted advertising to newbies over the winter – I’ve really only just started PMing new members again to tell them about the meetups, so we haven’t had new people coming along to make up for the inevitable drop-off of the “older” members. Mothercat was always good at keeping in touch with newbies, but she hasn’t been as active with Bookcrossing this year as she was in the past, and while I’ve tried to take over the greeting newbies job, I’m nowhere near as diligent (or successful!) as she was.
Anyway, despite the scarcity of members, we had a nice meal and a pleasant chat, and for a change I actually managed to leave with less books than I arrived with – Meerkitten quickly laid claim to Lucy and the Mapcap Mystery by Cole Fannin, and spent the rest of the evening engrossed in it (apart from occasional attempts to defend her chips from awhina); I finally got someone to take the Slow Cooker recipe book home – awhina’s going to try out a few recipes and then pass it on to her mother; and on the way to the busstop I released Presumed Innocent by Scott Turow, Boswell’s London Journal, What Katy Did by Susan Coolidge, and A Passage to India by EM Forster in various spots around the Arts Centre. The only book I brought home was Shadows from the Fire by Mary Ryan, which lytteltonwitch highly recommended.
Currently reading: Darwin’s Radio by Greg Bear