Paperspine
There’s a new book company out that is already known as “NetFlix for books.” Paperspine specializes in renting books to people, much like NetFlix’s movie rental service. Pick the books you want, they mail them to you, you read them, you send them back and get more books. There are different levels of subscriptions to suit your reading needs.
I’m by no means an avid reader. I try to read a lot, but I usually start a book, only to get halfway through and stop reading. Later, I’ll pick up another book and do the same. There are many books I’ve purchased that I’ve yet to read. I’d like to have more books, but I can’t see the sense in buying them if they’re only going to sit on the shelf for years - literally. But, I have a desire to read more. One of my daily goals is to sit down with my Bible and a good book and read.
So, is Paperspine my answer? For ten bucks a month, I can have two books at once. I can read them at my leisure and send them back when I’m done with them. No clutter on bookshelves. I’d be out $120 per year, and hopefully I could read at least one book per month. Since I’d be paying monthly, would that give me more motivation to read?
Eh, we’ll see. I may start a subscription and see what happens. I could only hope to get the level of people like Al Mohler (several books PER WEEK - on top of an extremely busy schedule), Tim Challies (posts book reviews very frequently - every few days or so) and other prolific readers of the world. For now, we’ll shoot for one per month. If that doesn’t happen, I can always cancel and go back to looking at all the books on my shelf that I’ve yet to read.
Just a heads up…there is this awesome place in Frankfort I have heard about where you can get books for FREE!!! I think it’s called the Paul Sawyer Public Library.
Just thought I would plug that. I don’t think that Dave Ramsey would approve of paying to read books that you don’t own when you can do that for free and support your local community, too. 
Cari Chase
6 Dec 07 at 1:33 pm
Yes… quite aware of the library. In fact, I’m a card-carrying member. I’ve found their selection of books that I like to read (Christianity, theology, etc.) to be QUITE limited. A quick search of Paperspine showed a ton of books that I’ve wanted to read already in their selection.
admin
6 Dec 07 at 2:27 pm
BookSwim.com has been doing such a great job providing this same service that we have inspired others to throw their proverbial hats in the ring. However, we’re still the only show in town that offers hardcovers in addition to paperbacks. Plus, unlike others, our shipping is always free. So give us a gander over at BookSwim.com.
Eric Ginsberg
7 Dec 07 at 12:29 pm
Bookswim is better in almost every way.
More mature/developed site, more features, better intergration with literary social networks, ability to rate/review and the list continues.
2 Reasons is chose paperspine:
1. Slightly better selction for my tastes. I read a lot of Latin American novels and Literature on the Bahá’i Faith and Islam.
2. Based on the west coast = better shipping times for me in Idaho. In fact, they ship my books UPS, not USPS. This may nto be true for those in bigger cities, but I get my books in 3 days, in a nice UPS box.
But, like I said, for the most part, Bookswim is the superior website. Paperspine is developing fast though. Since I use Goodreads.com for book reviewing I have not suffered from the lack of this at Paperspine.
Gerald
11 Jul 08 at 11:08 am