It would have read like something from the fantasy genre to be told that there could come a day when unwanted books were left in boxes on roadsides, free for anyone to take.

The well-read and the unread become equals at this moment. The worthy and the not-so share the same destiny. The unloved and pre-loved. Those gilded with New York Times Bestseller List stickers alongside those yet to beguile.

The guilt of a decluttering purge, where wastefulness and mindfulness meet their common factor, is assuaged by an act of generosity. Alas, those books not re-homed by a passer-by shall await their rainy-day fate. It's a tear-jerker.

Ream upon ream of discarded words are sent to landfill every council household bulk waste clean-up. Compacted by a rear-end loader. Condensed editions. Books have become so easy to mass-produce that overstock is pulped. Not so much as a chance to be leafed through, dog-eared or blessed by marginalia of the thought-provoked. Book appreciators may categorise that as true crime.

More than 55 million physical books are sold in Australia every year. Internationally the tally is enormous, and growing faster than trees.

At the edge of King Edward Park, in the inner-city Newcastle suburb of The Hill, Matthew Tynan is part of a growing movement to rewrite the horror story of book wastage. This week he replaced his small street library (which he estimates was visited about 30 times a day) with a larger, and more enchanting, one made from a discarded dollhouse.

Tynan started the street library when his mother, Marceline, a prolific reader, was clearing bookshelves.

"That's how it all started, we had so many books here," she says.

She hasn't counted how many books she's put into the street library, but she's held on to "quite a few" that she wants to read again.

The dollhouse was a kerbside discard in disrepair, picked up by Matthew about six months back. He put it in the garage with no real plan in mind. But, as his street library gained in popularity, "it all made sense". He asked Teralba artist Bec Murray to spruce it up. She added some whimsical touches too, painting in tiny animals and a possum reading Possum Magic in the attic beside a wall-hanging that reads: "Always my mother, forever my friend".

"I absolutely adore it," says Marceline.

"I'm a reader, my mother was a reader, and we always had books. I always like to know what other people are reading now."

Cecile Schuldiener, who runs Street Libraries Australia (a free mapping platform and promoter of street libraries), says that the libraries have proven their worth on a number of levels, but especially as "an easy way to start a conversation in your neighbourhood".

"Rather than 'what do you do for a living?', it's 'what book are you loving?'," Schuldiener says.

"It just opens up a whole new conversation that breaks down lots of barriers."

Since starting nearly five years ago, more than 3400 libraries have been put on the organisation's official map. But Schuldiener is aware there are many others out there to be found. Street Libraries Australia recently joined the Snapsendsolve app encouraging "street library hunters" to share locations of unmapped libraries.

The street library movement largely grew out of The Little Free Library Organisation, started in the US in 2009. Margret Aldrich, who currently heads the organisation, says it now has more than 125,000 libraries worldwide registered as members, and an active grassroots literacy program to "water book deserts".

The organisation has given away more than 1250 little libraries, filled with books, to communities "where access to books is a challenge". They've put them in parks, schools, on Native reservations, and even in laundromats.

"Our mission is to increase book access for all readers, regardless of age, background, or socioeconomic status," says Aldrich, a former publishing acquisitions editor.

My tour of some local street library offerings starts at 80 Cherry Road, Eleebana. A large twin-door commercial fridge, stuffed full - there's Jodi Picoult, Dean Koontz, Jeffrey Archer, Kaz Cooke, John Marsden, Sidney Sheldon (creator of the TV hit series I Dream of Jeannie, who started writing romantic suspense when he was 50), and a universe of Danielle Steel.

The library is outside a childcare centre. To cut a long story short, when the fridge motor blew it sparked an idea with the centre's director, Leah Murray. She got help to remove the mechanical parts and bolt the fridge in place. Donations come from leftovers from the university's biennial book sales, from deceased estates and in boxed batches from locals.

The turnover and donation rate is so high, Murray will double capacity with the installation of a second fridge in the new year.

Book clubs from Warners Bay and Charlestown have started to use the library. A club member selects a novel, they pass it around and then meet to discuss. And groups of "seniors" that meet for coffee at the garden nursery across the road from the library are also regulars.

That's the type of connection Murray was hoping for.

"It came from just looking at reaching out to the community, and also literacy, it's embedded in what we do with our literacy program at the centre. It's enriching literacy in the community," she says.

"It's drawn more purpose than I ever thought, it's like most things in life that you put your heart in."

The name Nicholas Sparks has been printed on more than 115 million spines and one of those is my find in the fridge library on Cherry Road. It's a small format paperback, a reprint edition of the novel A Walk to Remember.

As part of the likely target market for Nicholas Sparks (I'm a middle-aged woman), I probably should be more familiar with his writing, or at least the movies based on his mass bestsellers, which include The Notebook.

The backcover blurb, to paraphrase, says the book is about a popular and handsome 17-year-old who gets stuck with a prom date who is not his type (she's a quiet homebody who likes to rescue animals). He falls "hopelessly in love", but then discovers her sad, secret truth. The story is narrated 40 years on by that popular, handsome boy, who promises in the prologue he'll make you smile, but warns that you will also cry.

I do both.

A book that I'd never heard of before, by an author I'd never before considered reading, has me captivated.

Murray says street libraries are about just that - "in the moment" experiences.

"They encourage people to think outside the square with their interests, which is something it's done for me as well," she says.

The point isn't to find a book you already know you'll like, it's to realise the treasure within unfamiliar covers. Sidney Sheldon, here I come.

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