Website Links People Across Continents Through Books

04 March 2012

Jan Berenstain shows a copy of the first two books she and husband, Stanley Berenstain, created for children

BOB DOUGHTY: Welcome to THIS IS AMERICA in VOA Special English. I'm Bob Doughty.

FAITH LAPIDUS: And I'm Faith Lapidus. This week on our program, we tell you about a website that connects people around the world through books. Then, we look back at the lives of two people from the book world. Jan Berenstain was a children's author and illustrator. Barney Rosset was an independent publisher who fought against censorship to publish books like "Lady Chatterley's Lover."

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BOB DOUGHTY: Reading can be a social activity. Think of the people who belong to book groups. They choose books to read and then meet to discuss them. Now, the website BookCrossing.com turns the page on the traditional idea of a book group.

Members go on the site and register books they own that they would like to share. BookCrossing provides an identifying number to stick inside the book. Then the person "releases" the book by leaving it in a public place. The hope is that the book will have an adventure, traveling far and wide with each new reader who finds it.

Bruce Pederson is the chief executive of BookCrossing. He and his wife Heather launched the site with Ron Hornbaker in two thousand one.

BRUCE PEDERSON: "One of the founding principles was the two things that change your life are the people you meet and books you read."