After 10 years at Microsoft, recently on the "Origami" ultra-mobile PC project, Dustin Hubbard started a book rental service called Paperspine.

The company, which launched last week and announced its debut with a press release today, charges a monthly fee to rent books from its library of 150,000-plus books.

Hubbard's comment from the release:

"We believe we can revolutionize the book industry by offering the convenience of the Internet with the borrowing system long used by local libraries. As a Netflix customer and avid reader, I thought the same model could work for books."

Books are ordered from its Web site and sent with return shipping mailers.

"Not only will you be saving money, you'll reduce BCS (Book Clutter Syndrome) around your house," the site says.

The base plan is $9.95 and lets users have two books out at a time and charges $1.49 shipping per book. At $14.95 a month, shipping is free, and other plans range to $24.95.

Maybe there's a market among avid readers, but not in my house of public library fanatics.