mailed out 5 books on Friday......media mail ones to CA and MA have already arrived !  But first class one to AL hasn't been marked rec'd yet!

I think you might have gotten lucky or I've just been gettin unlucky!  I've had several media mail books recenlty that took forever to get to where they were going and I use the DC option so I get to watch the whole long saga!  Sadly I also had a swap member order me a book a week ago that ended up getting sent from a book store about an 1 and a half from where I live that went media mail.  It took 3 or 4 days to get here.  I live about in the Middle of Missour and this book went up to Iowa then back down to Kansas City, KS only to then come right back the direction it was sent from to go to me.  It was so weird.  I just don't think USPS know what it does with its media mail some days!  Then you get the odd book that travels across the country in a couple of days *sigh*

Granted 4 days to get a book isn't too bad but it seemed pretty sad when it only started out 1 hour and 3 minute drive from me ; )

yep, I always laugh when I see how long the books take to just go a few hours between towns in FL !

I don't normally use DC on my books, but it is always amusing when I do to see the convoluted route that some books take! Books going across town from me travelling to Pennsylvania first... yet a book from across the country arrives after a two day trip, media mail!

Sent a book on Saturday to Massachusetts and it arrived Monday. 

DH's parents sent a package Saturday from Ohio and we got it yesterday too. 

USPS is impressing me a lot lately. At work we used to use FedEx 2-day but now we use USPS Priority- just as fast, cheaper ($5 v. $15) and it has delivery confirmation built in.

Once the holidays start, my experience is that books get delivered fast. I think they've already been ramping up for the holiday push. I've noticed faster than usual delivery starting about 2 weeks ago.

It will go back to normal about mid-January.

Wow Linda, that's fast service for FL to MA. I also sent books Media Mail on Saturday and they were delivered on Monday, but they went to Sara P who's only about 100 miles from me. Luckily the black hole of Bell, CA is not in between our two towns or they'd probably still be there with all the other books I mailed at the same time.

I have seen quite a few books, almost always from the East Coast, reaching me (NW Arkansas)  in three days, faster than a truck moves not counting the book changing hands in both Memphis and Little Rock. The only thing I can figure, and my local postmistress agrees, that the very first handler must have placed the book with First Class mail instead of Media Mail.

During the early 70s, my mother on the East Coast would, on a regular basis, mail me a letter at a very rural, Maryland post office in the afternoon. I'd get it at Camp Pendleton, in southern California, the next morning.

My aunt, who lived in L.A., only 80 miles away, would mail me letters and they would take one to two weeks to get to me.