A global "social experiment" to test human trust
Books here are on trip.Track their handprints
Every book that joins does so without a plan. Once it leaves your hands, strangers decide where it goes next, what they write about it, and whether it ever comes home. Nobody, including us, knows how far any one copy will get.
- Books in relay
- 0
- Pairs of hands
- 0
- People tracking
- 0
- Cities
- 0
- Countries
- 0
- Distance
- 34,971 km
The last twelve hands
Every mark is somebody who picked up a book they did not own and passed it on.
Openly, an experiment
Relay is a social experiment, not a delivery service
Every number on this page, the books, the hands, the distance, is data from a running test: will a stranger, with nothing to gain, actually keep a small promise to a book that was never theirs?
There's no reward for checking in. No leaderboard, no account, no reputation to build. Just a code inside a cover and a choice, twenty seconds long, to pass a story on or let it stop with you.
So far, most books go quiet after a hop or two. A few don't. Nobody, including us, knows in advance which kind any single book will be, that's what makes it worth running.
How the relay works
Five things happen, and only two of them are yours
- 01 Register the book Say why you're letting it go. That note travels with it forever and is the first thing a stranger reads.
- 02 Print the plate A code, and a line in six languages explaining that the book isn't lost. Glue it inside the front cover.
- 03 Let go A hostel shelf, a seat pocket, a friend flying out. Assume you'll never hold it again, that's the deal.
- 04 Strangers scan it Twenty seconds, no account. A pin on the map, a photograph, a line about what they felt reading it.
- 05 You get an email, sometimes years later Most books go quiet after a hop or two. Release a few. One of them will surprise you.
Add Relay to your home screen. Check-ins work even with no signal, they send themselves when you're back online.