Bookmooch is a website in which a person can trade away their old books that they no longer read for books that they do wish to read. Here’s how it works. Adding books to your inventory gets you a tenth of a point per book added. With a full point you can request another book from a separate user. When a user requests one of your books, you get a point from them. You only have to pay shipping on books you send out. So essentially, you are getting a book you want to read for the cost of an old book + shipping, which, if you don’t collect your books and just read them, works out very nicely. You add books to your wishlist and you recieve an e-mail when one of those books are available for mooching.

I thought that I would tell others about this site, as it has proven quite useful for me. I have used it to trade away a lot of my old books and manga that I don’t want for books I do want. Personally I’ve given away 45 books, and received almost 60. While I believe Bookmooch is the best of it’s kind, there are other sites similar to it that offer more than just books:

PaperBack Swap
Similar to Bookmooch, this site also provides DVD and CD swapping sites, though they cost a small fee. Apparently they have a larger userbase than Bookmooch, however I found Bookmooch somewhat simpler to use and more user-friendly. The one advantage to PaperBack Swap that I did see was the ability to buy points for books, in the event you didn’t want to trade away books of your own.

Movie Moocher
Designed for College Campuses specifically, this site is for lending DVDs to other students on campus, rather than trade them away. Rather than using Blockbuster, you just lend someone a DVD and they are to return it when they have watched it. This site, however, is very new, and could use some work on the usability. Perhaps in the future it will improve, and get a larger userbase.