Man: Book crossing.
Woman: This is a modern activity made into an official process by an American. When you have finished reading a book, you leave it in your hotel room, on a train or in a café for somebody else to find it and read it.
Listen to this short conversation:
Man: Why aren’t you packing those books?
Woman: Because I’ve finished them all, so I’m book crossing.
Man: You’re what?
Woman: I’m book crossing. It means I’m leaving the books for someone else to find and read.

Man: Global reading club.
Woman: As book crossing now has a website, it has produced a reading club around the world. Now listen:
Woman: Book crossing has over 250,000 members.
Man: You mean this is an official thing. You’re not the only one who buys books and leaves them for someone else to find.
Woman: No, people have always done this, as books are so heavy to carry, but, now you can log them on the website bookcrossing.com and see where they go.
Man: Release.
Woman: Release means to allow something to be free. So in the case of book crossing it means to set a book free to travel the world. When you have left a book in a public place you can then register it on the website. Now listen:
Woman: Ok, my ID number for this book is D27389.
Man: What are you doing now?
Woman: I’m registering the books I’ve just released on the website.
Man: Hurry up, or we’ll miss our flight.
Man: Track.
Woman: To track something, means to monitor its progress. So in the case of book crossing you can see with the ID number where a book travels to.
Now listen:
Woman: Mmm, now I’ve got all the ID numbers I’ll be able to track them.
Man: Track them? Why?
Woman: Well someone will find the books and hopefully they’ll also leave them somewhere else when they’ve read them, and enter their new position on the website and so on. Who knows where they’ll end up?
Man: Well, we’ll not get home if you don’t hurry up.

Man: Report.
Woman: Report means to give information on something. For the activity of book crossing it means if you find a book with an ID number and the website on it, you should log onto the website and report where you found it and then where you have left it. For example:
Woman: Oh look someone’s left a book here.
Man: Maybe they’re coming back, and they’ve just gone to the bar.
Woman: I don’t think so, look there’s an ID number for bookcrossing.com.
Man: Here we go. I suppose you have to report it. What’s the book? Is it worth reading?

Woman: Now let’s listen to some information about the novel activity of book crossing adapted from wikipedia.org

Man: Book crossing is the name given to the practice of leaving a book in a public space (a bus stop, a cinema, an airport) so that someone else can find it and read it. The idea came to Ron Hornbaker, an American software developer who set up a website, www.bookcrossing.com, in 2001. The purpose of book crossing is to make the whole world a global reading club.
But how do you start book crossing?
If you want to “release” a book, you have to register it on the Book Crossing website. Your book will be given an identification number so that it can be tracked. Those who find the book are requested to report the event on the website and pass the book after they have read it. When someone records journal entries for your book, you will get notified by e-mail. Book crossing has 250,000 members across the world and has also been added to the Concise Oxford English Dictionary as a new word.