Strange bookmark found in a book.

[draughtycatflap]

Sitting here waiting for the man to repair my heating and I thought I’d start a new book. It’s an out of print one from the 1970s that I’d been searching for ages. I picked it up and flipped through to find a rather surprising bookmark. I’ll post it a bit later just to keep you all guessing. 😀

I wonder though, have you ever flipped through a book and found something odd, surprising, intriguing or unexpected? I would love to hear about it. 🙂

I would say a locket of hair...dying to know...

Sanitary towel

Is it drug related? Acid?

Ah, just read more of the thread! Very good!

I once for an African bank note inside a book Is bought from a charity shop. Thankfully hubby was a collector so it's always been treasured.

And it was??

@Whu020

And it was??

Really?

Loved this thread, there are certainly some eccentric book-readers out there!! I recently opened an old, well used cookbook which belonged to my Grandmother, then my mum, and finally passed on to me. In it, i found i note, very clearly in my Grandfather's writing, saying "Welcome to bed, my love." It makes me weep a little - she obviously kept the note where she would see it often, then my mum kept it in there too, in their memory. My grandparents were amazing, and loved each other very much. I hope I'm as lucky...

On Saturday 30th June 2018, a party invitation fell out of my 2nd hand book. The party date was Saturday 30th June 1990.

@Pet8

If the party had been local I would have gone round there and knocked on the door and said "Sorry I'm a bit late but the traffic was really heavy"

I routinely buy used books form an online source here in the USA. They're pretty good about checking, but things slip through. My favorite was in my copy of "Rebecca," by Daphne du Murier, printed in 1950's, with a letter from a service man to his wife. It simply read, "COMING HOME! I LOVE YOU!" He was an officer, and it was written on his letterhead. I keep it tucked in my jewelry box. I know the wife is dead now, and the book was part of her estate, so I keep it in her honor.

I found a black & white photo of a young man in a straw boater hat in one of my grandmother's books. A picture of a friend or boyfriend of hers perhaps?

Maybe TMI at this hour of the morning but a company I used to work for made a treatment for herpes of the downstairs variety IYSWIM.
Our marketing department produced bookmarks to be sent to GPs advertising it. With full colour graphic pictures.
We agreed that if you let that in a library book no way would you try to reclaim it.

@unlikelytobe Where I used to work, in a village outside Cambridge, there was an old phone box which had been re-purposed as a makeshift library, with bookshelves along the sides! It was called the Shepreth book exchange. Anyone was welcome to contribute a book or magazine, or take one away. I found several interesting books to read, and also offloaded a few I no longer wanted.

@Tzimi

I found a black & white photo of a young man in a straw boater hat in one of my grandmother's books. A picture of a friend or boyfriend of hers perhaps?

There has been some great stories on here. I love seeing old photographs online too. I think it is such a pleasure to find odd and unlikely bookmarks (except bacon 😂) and think about who owned them and the reason for keeping them. I’m tempted to print some of my favourite pictures onto postcards and slip them into my books for unsuspecting future readers!

I’m keeping smoking leather-capped dildo chair man though.

I want to know why so many people allegedly use bacon as a bookmark?? It has never occurred to me to use a rasher of bacon (cooked or uncooked) as a bookmark. See also cheese, salami, or any other flatish foodstuff....

If the phone or door-bell rings while you're reading, it's easy enough to slip a finger in as a temporary bookmark.
At least, if you're in the Addams Family.

I don't really understand the need for bookmarks - can people really not remember that they're up to the end of Chapter 3 or the bit where the husband arrives at the ski resort or whatever?

Best one I ever found was a letter in Danish written by a young child in what would have been Nazi occupied Denmark (dated1942). What it was doing in a romance novel in the Highlands of Scotland we'll never know.

@SomewhatBored

I don't really understand the need for bookmarks - can people really not remember that they're up to the end of Chapter 3 or the bit where the husband arrives at the ski resort or whatever?

I'm often reading two or three things at once, with a Victorian novel (usually 500 pages of tiny print) making up one of them. Even if I've ended a chapter, it's unlikely that I'd remember if it was Chapter LVIII or LIX.

I often use other books as bookmarks.

@SomewhatBored

I don't really understand the need for bookmarks - can people really not remember that they're up to the end of Chapter 3 or the bit where the husband arrives at the ski resort or whatever?

I have a book I'm reading to DS, one DS is reading to me some nights and DH on other nights, I'm re-reading Les Mis, halfway through Alexander Hamilton's biography and just started another book. Yes I need flipping bookmarks!

DD (13) is the same and is reading a library book, a school book, Macbeth and a history of politics. She, likewise, needs bookmarks!

I also love bookmarks and have loved ones, quirky ones, sentimental ones.

My favourite crime stories are Rex Stout's about Nero Wolfe.
Wolfe is a great reader, and just dog-ears anything trashy, but when it's something which deserves respect, he uses a slim piece of pure gold as a bookmark.
Now there's one I'd like to find!

@terrywynne

I want to know why so many people allegedly use bacon as a bookmark?? It has never occurred to me to use a rasher of bacon (cooked or uncooked) as a bookmark. See also cheese, salami, or any other flatish foodstuff....

A handy snack? Nothing like a piece of crispy bacon when starting a new chapter I suppose. But being a bit of a neat freak I find putting foodstuffs in books strange.

Indeed- bacon is such a rare treat in our house that it certainly wouldn't be wasted as a bookmark!
My DS does as TheSandman and uses other books 😭