Great (And Dry) Books Available at the 8th St Book Exchange

Park Slope has got to be the world’s capital for finding great stuff on the street. Whether it’s furniture, clothing, electronics or baby gear, great things can be found for free outside.

Books are Park Slope neighbors’ most common offering. They’re the perfect find: easy to carry, easy to store, easy to put them on your own stoop once you’ve finished. The neighborhood is like a square mile lending library with no return date.

Walk around on a sunny day and you’re liable to find great treasures. But what about rainy days? People put things outside in all kinds of weather. Sometimes, if it’s gotta go, it’s gotta go. Still, it’s a shame to see books, especially good books, ruined by a thunderstorm.

The solution? On the corner of 8th Street and 8th Avenue, you’ll find the 8th Street book exchange. Safe from nature are a mixture of high-brow and low-brow.

Among the books recently on offer were Katherine Paterson’s classic Bridge to Terabithia, Tom Clancy’s Red Storm Rising, and, sure to please the toddler set, Things That Go. Thomas Hardy’s The Return of the Native can be found alongside Peter Hoeg’s Smilla’s Sense of Snow.

It may be time to face the fact that we live in a socialist utopia.

Another book exchange recently popped up in South Slope, making use of an abandoned newspaper bin – which might not a bad idea for some of the bins around here.