Little Free Library: take a book, give a book

I take a lot of walks in my neighbourhood and in the last couple of years I’ve noticed small little house-shaped boxes on a stilt in people’s gardens. It’s not a birdhouse or a shrine, but a house of books – a Little Free Library – placed near the street so a passerby can take a look, grab a book, and return a different book.

Little Free Library is a non-profit organisation that supports people installing mini libraries on their lawn to share books with the community. Some buy official Little Free Library units but anyone can make their own and register it with the Little Free Library organisation to be added to the official map.

There are dozens of these libraries within a 10-mile radius of my home and I always take a look inside. While editing my novel Catchee Monkey: A Rex & Eddie Mystery I found a book on copyediting in a local LFL. I took the book home and used it as a guide while finishing Catchee Monkey.

This month I decided it was time I gave a book to the Little Free Library so I dropped off a couple of copies of Catchee Monkey, one at the LFL I got my copyediting book from and another local LFL I like. I also inserted a Strange Paul postcard which my artist friend Ben Cameron asked me to leave around Los Angeles. Check out his Etsy store.

I hope the Little Free Library trend continues to grow. Owners talk about how installing one connected them with their neighbours and brought a collection of new books to their front door. Of course, there are some spoil-sports who call in complaints and misuse zoning laws to remove the libraries, but hopefully common sense will win out. As soon as I have a front garden, I plan on getting a Free Little Library myself.

Catchee Monkey Reviews Word Cloud

I had some fun with the word cloud creating website www.wordle.net and inputted all the reviews for my book Catchee Monkey. The results were interesting.

The character’s names show up biggest, which makes sense since it is also name of the series – Rex & Eddie Mysteries. Next up was “book,” “read,” and “story;” which are obvious words to use in a review. Following that is the word “funny” and that’s fantastic. As the author I can call my book a comedy, but only the reader can call it funny. I can, of course, quote the reader.

Other words that pop out are “British,” “detective,” “mystery,” “first,” and “humor” (the spelling shows it’s the American’s that have written the most reviews).

I can also tell people are looking “forward” to the sequel, or a “movie” adaptation. One word that stood out was “Hardy.” Catchee Monkey had been compared to Laurel and Hardy a few times but Laurel doesn’t show up as big on the word cloud. This confused me for a bit but I realised it’s because my book has also been compared to the Hardy Boys, a US mystery book series for teens. I’ve been looking for ways to pitch the book series and found “Laurel & Hardy meets Philip Marlowe” is the best description. Maybe from now on I can call Rex and Eddie “the Laurel and Hardy Boys.”

Reading Event: Book'd in Burbank

On April 23th 2015 I’ll be doing a reading from my comedy-mystery novel Catchee Monkey. The event is called Book’d in Burbank and takes place at the Theater Banshee, 3435 W. Magnolia Blvd, Burbank, 91505.

As part of the literary entertainment there will be total of six readings spanning many genres: mystery, comedy, young adult, and romance. They’ll also be book giveaways, dessert, and a chance to mingle.

Tickets are $10 and can be bought at eventbrite.com Did I mention dessert?