Just back from an interesting look at a phenomenon that is yet another form of contemporary archaeology. Take a look at http://www.bookcrossing.com and you'll see what I mean...

...it's "Catch and Release" with literary works in a keep-net. The idea being that members liberate books they have read, anywhere, in the hope that others will pick them up, log their history, and send them again on their way...

The books - marked "Free take me!" - have an individual number already registered online in a cyber bookshelf. The idea is that finders go to the site, and log the book. Then move it on.

There are some 360,000 members worldwide, and "bookcrossing" is now a word in the dictionary, as noted on its Webby-award winning site

"bookcrossing n. the practice of leaving a book in a public place to be picked up and read by others, who then do likewise."

(added to the Concise Oxford English Dictionary in August 2004)

It is also an act of faith. Sometimes books end up in second-hand stores with their distinctive "walking book" labels ripped out. But the growing popularity of the enterprise seems to show that people get the idea of objects with narratives, which is what we talk about more and more in archaeology.

I recently joined the Rome bookcrossing group, and travelled cross-country last weekend to meet up with other Italian bookcrossers at their annual get-together by the sea at Alba Adriatica. More of a social event for them; for me, as a new member (and yet to release my first book) I was more interested in the whys and wherefores...title of members' first release, where released, whether found and followed up. It's quite addictive quizzing, but most members have released dozens of books and simply can't remember names and locations. It's all logged somewhere. At the convivial Saturday party, piles of books were brought out for crossing with other members. There was an Italian version of "Around the World in Eighty Days" which I thought an apt title for a book on the move...

I picked up two American classics, which I'll release in Rome soon. One was a much-travelled paperback of "Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil" which, incidentally, was made into a fim starring John Cusack, who also starred in "Serendipity" a romcom which hinges on a star-cross'd lovers' book-crossing (the number in the book being a phone number rather than registration detail).

Now enthused to release in context, "To Kill a Mocking Bird" will probably end up in the Rome zoo, while "The Lovely Bones" on its first flight, is destined for a catacomb...

Anyway, it was fascinating to see how a history of a book can be created so simply and effectively. These volumes all have documented stories...

I now have an idea to do something like this, small scale, with a few objects. Simply tag them with an email address, and scatter them around Rome...

Colosseum wedding