FAUX LFLs AND FOR-REAL ONES

Not too long ago, I discovered the Local feature on LibraryThing.com. You may recall that LibraryThing's primary use is for cataloguing one's book collection.  It has expanded into other areas.  With Local, you get a map of places in your area that offer books, whether for free, at a discount, or at the normal prices.  So you have Little Free Libraries and their kind, thrift stores, and bona fide bookstores, whether big chains or independent ones.  All in one big map!  I love adding the Little Free Libraries that I know about, plus similar places that are not registered with LFL, i.e. no charter number, or those with charter number but no longer listed in the official LFL web site.

It was fun for a while but in the end, I cannot stand the not-so-big map that LibraryThing Local offers.  It takes up about a third of the screen and cannot go full-screen.  It's a lot of zooming in and panning around.  I am taking a break from LibraryThing Local and already re-visited my Google Map called Little Free Libraries Faux and For Real.

I have been to many LFLs and similar places in Brooklyn and Staten Island, some areas in Carteret NJ and nearby townships, too.  However, since I will soon share the map with my local Buy Nothing group, for Bath Beach and Gravesend areas, I am focusing on Brooklyn for now.  There are more Brooklyn places to visit, but I will first finish posting what I already have.  Enjoy!

LFL FAUX AND FOR-REAL

MY OWN FAUX LITTLE FREE LIBRARY

For a long time now, I want to host a Little Free Library.  Usually it's a wooden box in the shape of a house with a clear door.  Inside one would put books, free for the taking.  Ideally, others would add books to it.  "Take a book, share a book."  Of course, some people would just take and not give, but it's the hope that in the long run things balance out.  An official Little Free Library would be registered with the organization, be assigned a charter number, and be included in the organization's web site, so that people can find you.  I admire people who are good at carpentry and build one.  Or people who buy a kit and register them.  I am not sure if I can sustain the supply of books.  In the end, around November 2024, I took the plunge and built a ghetto version of the LFL box.  It's just a milk crate of sort attached to an I.V. pole.  At one time, in my house someone needed a daily I.V. drip, for plasma perhaps, with a visiting nurse.  When the treatment was over the I.V. pole was used to hang wet clothes on.  Now it is the base of my LFL, which I call "faux LFL" because I don't plan to register it.  I already volunteer much time with my local Buy Nothing group, as well as regularly checking the Buy Nothing app and Next Door app about people giving away books.  I have some success with getting books from neighbors but something even better happened today.  I happened to notice that there was a book for the movie Thelma and Louise.  It was a screenplay about the movie.  That definitely wasn't there before.  I went inside the house to do something else, when I came back out there were three books by James Patterson.  You know, that policeman in the Washington D.C. area.  Wait, maybe Patterson writes about other characters, too, but that's the first thing I thought about.  My faux LFL is getting participation from the locals!  That's the best case scenario.  I add some books, people take some, hopefully to read or to put in other LFLs, people add some, things get moved around and hopefully enjoyed.  Yes, one minor, but good, problem I have lately is I do find books I think I will enjoy so I took them, now my To-Be-Read pile is getting higher and higher.  I was reading Book 1 of Isaac Asimov Foundation series, but then I found the book Dad Jokes Too (Two, get it?).  I don't know where the Jokes book went so I probably will go back to Foundation.  Among the pile is Motherless Brooklyn, The Hurt You Give, and The Time Traveler's Wife.  Anyway, hope the flow of books keep going, no books get trashed, and people enjoy books.  Should you want to visit my fLFL, it's on Bay 40th Street in Brooklyn, NY near 86th Street, look for the huge tree.  Remember, take a book, share a book.