I really should make a list of what I want to mention in my diary before I write the entry, because I pressed the button and then remembered a couple of notable catches.

One is A History of the United States: Volume Two: The Growth of the USA by RB Nye and JE Morpurgo, a rather boring looking book I released at the beginning of the year. Whoever picked it up was obviously a cheapskate, because they gave it to their friend as a birthday present! And the friend (who made a journal entry) doesn’t even like history, from the sound of it! Hmm, think they need to get some more generous friends

The other catch is actually a find (Complicated bit of Bookcrossing terminology there: When you a release a book and someone else journals it, it’s a catch. When someone else releases a book and you make a journal entry, that’s a find. Both statistics are shown on your bookshelf page, and newbies are always asking what the difference is.) Unfortunately not a book I found in the wild, but something almost as good – perfect-circle sent me Boating for Beginners by Jeanette Winterson as a RABK (Random Act of Bookcrossing Kindness – sending someone a book out of the blue, without expecting anything in return). I had no idea she was sending it to me (and it’s a book I’ve been wanting to read for ages), so it was a wonderful surprise when it turned up in my letterbox.

…and that means it’s Bookcrossing meetup night. Back to Cafe Bleu again (but we’ve decided to go somewhere else next time – we’re all getting a bit bored with them now), and a smallish turn-out: me, Alithia, awhina, lytteltonwitch, and MonkeCatcher. Most of the conversation centred, unsurprisingly, around the rapidly approaching BCNZ Convention, as at least four of the five of us will be going (and I think we almost had MonkeCatcher convinced to join us by the end of the evening, so it could be five for five).

I took along A Long Fatal Love Chase by Louisa May Alcott, The Lovely Bones by Alice Sebold, Under the Duvet by Marian Keyes and Clara’s Heart by Joseph Olshan, and only brought home In a Strange Garden: The Life and Times of Truby King by Lloyd Chapman, so for a change I actually managed to reduce the net number of books in the house (for a while, anyway).

Currently reading: Star Wars: Cloak of Deception by James Luceno