In Praise of the Book Exchange

As I’ve mentioned, I loved nearly everything about my visit to Bequia, in Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, last week—but today, finding myself craving a nice, lightweight paperback novel, one particular memory from the island stands out.

The book exchange was ubiquitous there. I’m used to seeing them around hostels and budget guesthouses, but in Bequia, they were everywhere—from my hotel lobby to the restaurant where I ate lunch one day, it seemed there was a shelf full of paperbacks waiting for a trade in every corner.

My guess is that the yachties who flock to Bequia are probably responsible for all the book exchange shelves; I’d imagine you go through a fair number of drugstore paperbacks during a long stint at sea. But whatever the reason, I got a little thrill every time I spotted the modest stacks. I’d poke through them while I was waiting for my meal or drink to arrive, checking for inscriptions inside the front covers—maybe I’d find a long line of travelers who’d signed their names?—or counting up the number of Dan Brown or James Patterson titles on offer.

I’m not normally a devourer of paperback fiction, but, thanks in part to the book exchanges I’ve stumbled across in hostels over the years, it’s something I associate closely with my travels. I read “The Devil Wears Prada” in an Istanbul bunk bed, and “Confessions of a Shopaholic” on an overnight train ride through Canada’s Maritimes, while “The Da Vinci Code” prompted a late night of reading in northern England. In the last year or so, though, I’ve seen the inside of more motels than hostels, and my on-the-road reading habits have altered accordingly. Bequia’s book exchanges reminded me of those good old days—and also made me wish more restaurants and hotels would build paperback shelves of their own.

The only problem with Bequia’s bookshelves? I couldn’t do anything more than look—I didn’t have a just-read novel of my own to trade in. I guess we’ll have to add a disposable paperback to the list of books you shouldn’t travel without.

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