The Round House Cafe will re-open in a week or so, but we have set out to explore Sunday brunch places in between. Today we returned to Vermont, and we drove past the littlefreelibrary.org set up by the roadside. Maria got a book on Goddesses there two weeks ago that she has been reading ever since, and today she returned a book, a novel she had just finished.

We were inspired by this little free library – there are now more than 50,000 across the U.S. The first one was built in 2009 by a Wisconsin man who wanted to honor his late mother. They are all over the place, although some communities have tried to ban them as illegal structures or unsightly additions to pristine neighborhoods.

I think they are quite beautiful.

The little free libraries are popular all over the country – Cape Cod, the Pacific Northwest, the Deep South. As far as we know, we will be the first to have one in our town, perhaps even our county.

We asked our friend and carpenter Jay Bridge to build one for us, and he is working it. We’ll put it out in front of the house. People say it takes a while for people to get used to it, but then there is a steady flow of books taken and books replaced.

Maria and I both loved this idea, we stopped in the rain to add a book to this collection, we noticed several books had been taken and replaced since we were last there. Sometimes, the Internet brings wonderful things. Sometimes it takes things away.

This is such a great idea.