Many and many a year ago, when dinosaurs roamed the planet, I was a youth hosteler. I was also madly bookish and (during one trip) a newly minted librarian. So I participated with great pleasure in the youth-hostel-book-meme. Though we didn't use such terms as meme in those benighted pre-internet days. We'd buy used books to read on the train, and leave them, when finished in our hostel rooms with our name and a brief request to "pass this along, with your name" in it. With the exception of a much-read copy of The Hobbit I never found a book to take myself, but I hope some of the books I provided proved entertaining.

Now, from the rss feed bookcase_claudi comes the updated version:

bookcrossing n. the practice of leaving a book in a public place to be picked up and read by others, who then do likewise.

According to Claudia:
"So, you read a book, you register with the site, register your book (you get a unique tracking number for it), and then you leave the book somewhere to be found. You can go hunting for books that have been released in your neighborhood, you can see who picked up your book, track its progress around the world... if it ever gets that far. Chances are, someone picks it up who doesn't care a dime about the concept. But, never mind. I think it rocks. Gives good karma, too?

The 'net brought a whole new level of stupidity to the chain-letter but a whole new charm to the... chain-book?

La plus ça change...