Book Project - Day 11 - Books for Soldiers

Damn, I missed another day yesterday. I was Busy at work and busy when I came home and I didn’t get a chance to write.

Oh well. I decided I won’t beat myself up over it. I’ll just pick up where I left off and keep going.

I have a couple of mail tubs full of books that I would like to remove. These are all books that either have been given to me or ones I have bought, but I either don’t like them or are not interested in them. So I have been looking for different way to get rid of them other than donating them to the library or Goodwill.



Not that I don’t like to support the library - I’m a regular fixture at the Pomona Library’s monthly book sales – I just thought it would be nice to get some of these books directly to someone who might like to read but have limited resources, like prison inmates or some of our service member overseas.

I’ve looked into sending the books to troops. A few years ago it was possible to send letter or care packages simply to “Any Service Member” but apparently due to heightened security the Department of Defense discontinued the practice of receiving unsolicited mails and packages. There are some websites out there that act as a liaison between service member and people interested in sending them books, BooksforSoldiers and OperationPaperback are 2 of them.

I actually did set up an account with OperationPaperback recently. The way it works is the soldiers send their request, noting their preferred genres. You set up an account and you log in to request one or a number of addresses, noting the genres of the books you are donating. The website then provides you with the name and addresses of the service members whose genre preferences match the books you have.

I haven’t sent anything yet – I haven’t got a box yet, will have to make a trip to the Post Office soon. The other unfortunate thing is that apparently I have very few books of the popular variety. The most popular genres are mystery, suspense and action/adventure, and I don’t have a lot of those. If I do they were usually given to me, and I usually turn around and sell them. But I still have a couple so I will send those off. And at least now I know which genre of books to look for for the troops next time I go book hunting.