In February this year, a small group of people in London started collecting used books and handing them out for free outside that city's Tube stations. The idea was to get people reading something besides the free tabloids they might otherwise pick up on their way to work, and help them "step off the conveyor belt of information," as the program's founder, Claire Wilson, puts it.

Now, Choose What You Read has jumped across the pond and begun collecting and distributing books in New York City. I stumbled - almost literally - on volunteers handing out the free books Tuesday night as I was crossing Astor Place in the East Village. Scattered about on the sidewalk were books of all kinds - paperbacks, hard covers, textbooks, fiction, anthologies - all for free. A few people stood near the books encouraging passersby to take a look, and to take or leave a book.

"Please take something to read!" one shouted. "Anything left we have to drag back to the warehouse."

With drop-boxes in several Manhattan locations, avid readers can easily contribute to the cause. And on the first Tuesday night of every month, they can replenish their supply by hitting up one of a few high-traffic areas in the city.

Participants often write their names in the books to record a book's path from one "owner" to the next, creating a kind of living testament to the notion that ideas should forever be in motion, on through the generations. What a nice alternative to the hyper-kinetic world of digital information. Everyone could use a good book, after all.

[Image: Lienhard Shultz via Wikimedia Commons]