Le Clan de L'Ours des Cavernes

It occurred to me as I was walking home last night that I haven’t done any ordinary book-releasing for ages. I’ve done mass releases, and release expeditions – loads of those special types of releases, but none of the spontaneous, happen to have a book in your bag and walk past a good spot, everyday type releases. And there I was, walking through a park, with park benches everywhere just waiting to have a book put on them, and the only book I had with me is the one I’m currently reading (In a Strange Garden by Lloyd Chapman, which I couldn’t release even if I had finished reading it, because I’ve promised to give it back to lytteltonwitch so she can release it at Seacliff). I used to *always* carry one or two ready-to-be-released books in my bag, just in case I came across somewhere to release them – I really must get into the habit of that again.

Of course, the first step would be to get some more books registered – I do have a box of books that are registered and labelled up ready to go out into the world, but in the back of my mind they’re kind of reserved for the Dunedin convention, so I’m reluctant to release them before then. I think a visit to the 20c table at the second hand bookshop might be in order soon, to stock up on releasable books. Hmm, I wonder if MrPloppy feels like accompanying me on an expedition over there this weekend…

I did release a couple of books this morning, though. Looking in my ready-to-release box last night, I saw Le Clan de L’Ours des Cavernes and La Vallée des Chevaux, French translations of Jean M Auel’s Clan of the Cave Bears and Valley of the Horses which I’d found at a booksale in Akaroa when we were over there during the Convention last year. I’d bought them just for the novelty of finding French books in Akaroa (which was originally a French colony), and had intended to release them in the French department of the university (where I thought they’d at least have a chance of finding a French speaker to read them). But like so many things in my life, I’d had the good idea, but then never actually got round to executing it. So this morning I put them in my bag and made a point of changing my normal route to work so that I’d pass the French department, and dropped them off on a table in their foyer. Hopefully they’ll be of use to someone – or at least some light entertainment to a student struggling through the great works of French literature! (And of course, now that I’ve released them, I’m suddenly thinking “I should have kept them and released them in the backpackers in Dunedin”…)