A nice thing about second hand books

[Etienne]

I often find things in them, one time it was a dried flower along with a very old metro ticket. Many different and interesting things I've found actually...

Does it happens to anyone else?

[book_jones]

I find a lot of photographs in books. I'm guessing that the previous owners used them as bookmarks and then forgot about them.

[idiosynchrissy]

I love second hand books. Aside from the fact that they are cheap and I can buy many more, I love to read any notes or comments that a previous reader may have made about the book. Sometimes they offer a unique perspective or just a quip. I haven't found any cool items yet, but maybe one day I will.

[Geumjassi]

Yes, I've found all sorts of things, from receipts to classy book markers. Most of all though, I love the smell of a well aged (not moldy though) book. I love shopping for used books!

[kasie]

I don't necessarily have to go to second-hand books to find treasures! The other day I opened a book that I studied for in my Finals Year and a four-leaf clover fell out - I remembered that I found it while revising in the sunshine sitting on the lawn just outside my residents' block and thought it a lucky omen so I picked it and slipped it inside the back cover of the book. (Yes, I passed! Lucky clover or sunny revision - who knows?) I often find bus tickets that remind me of the journeys to and from college/work I made whilst reading that particular book - did that journey really only cost that much in those days? - and postcards often fall out of the page they have been marking for goodness knows how many years bringing distant places, times and friends back to my mind. (Hmmm - there's a book in there somewhere, I think? :) )

[gwyndd]

yes, I always find old postcards, which I love.

[wilbur lim]

Second-hand books are inevitably cheap and can be found in the bulk of book sales which is much more relishing than pristine books.Pristine books are sold quite prohibitive,I had seen a $30 book and disdain at that price.Though second-hand books are antique,cheap is the vital thing.

[Dark Muse]

On occasions I will find things, though I haven't really found anything that interesting as of yet. I always think it is interesting to see the kind of notes that others leave in the books.

[kelby_lake]

I work in a charity bookshop- and I found a love letter in a book! Well, sort of- it was this woman writing to another woman saying 'steve is not worth fighting about. we love you and we want you to come home'. On a further page was a one-way ticket to Cardiff.
I couldn't take them because my supervisor was watching me- and I was so annoyed!

Oh, I found a wine receipt for 3000 francs worth of wine!

[grace86]

I've found all sorts of things. One book that I picked up had an inscription in pencil of the Serenity Prayer on it. I've found business cards and receipts (probably book marks). Whenever I buy a book though I leave the receipt in the pages just because. I too love the smell of second hand books.

[kelby_lake]

So do I!

[princesspoppi]

No I have not found anyting in an old book, but I can happily spend an hour or two browsing for that perfect used book. Ahh, my idea of a good time!

[Joreads]

I found some old wedding photo's in a library book once the great thing was they were able to find out who they belonged to and get them back home. I have never found anything interesting in a second hand book though

[*Classic*Charm*]

I love the inscriptions written in the front of second hand books, when they're from one person to another. I HATE other people's annotations though.

[Etienne]

I hate other people's annotation especially that they're often some kind of high school annotation with different colors for time, location, etc. indications...

[hhc]

I LOVE second hand books, too!!!!!:thumbs_up I've been reading lots of books my mom used to read when she was a kid, and I've actually learnt more things about my mom's childhood from the things I found in her books than from what she's told me.
PLUS I found out that my French teacher used to have a love life back in 1988, when she lent me The Plague, by Camus.

[bibliophile190]

I seem to find a lot of funeral invitations or wedding invitations. It's fascinating to read them.

[bounty]

I often find things in them, one time it was a dried flower along with a very old metro ticket. Many different and interesting things I've found actually...

Does it happens to anyone else?

occasionally yes i find a piece of old "litter" belonging to an earlier owner...and there is something neat about that. although, nothing sticks out to me as having been remarkable.

however, just within the past few years someone had bought an old book at an auction, was looking through it and discovered a ticket to an old jim thorpe basketball tour---pretty impressive from a lost sport history perspective:

http://www.pbs.org/opb/historydetectives/pdf/310_jimthorpe.pdf

[JBI]

I stuck a train ticket in a book I was carrying in the Air Port in Rome. Somehow, someone managed to jack the book from me, I suspect thinking the book mark a boarding pass. Lost a 3 Euro English copy of David Copperfield :(. Could be worse though, the family sitting beside me on the plain had a wallet stolen, and 40,000 spent on its credit card in the 20 minutes it took them to call in the card.

[mangueken]

Good post idea Etinenne,
I love hunting for good used books. I never found anything truly memorable but an old receipt and occasional train or subway ticket tend to be pretty common. I usually enjoy the inscriptions and notes as well.

[Cellar Door]

I love used books... buying them new from borders or b&n just doesn't feel the same, although I will buy from them from time to time... nothing beats the feel of well-turned pages, the smell of them, the look of them. I once found a copy of Sonnets from the Portuguese (E. Barrett Browning) with a black velvet cover in a used bookstore. You can always find cool stuff in those, if you have the time to look there... :) Give me a small, run-down used bookstore any day, and keep your chain, shiny, clean, cookie-cutter chain stores :)

[Virgil]

How about germs? Perhaps I'm the only one but when I buy a second hand book I wonder if the previous owner was some disgusting sick person passing on germs. ;)

[Cellar Door]

So you are the type who reads them with plastic gloves on then, eh Virgil? :lol:

[mayneverhave]

The copy of Harold Bloom's "Shakespeare: The Invention of the human" that I picked up from the library had a printed out internet critique of the work stuck about halfway through.

[Janine]

How about germs? Perhaps I'm the only one but when I buy a second hand book I wonder if the previous owner was some disgusting sick person passing on germs. ;)

Virgil, I have bought a lot of used books and I am a germaphobic; I usually try not to think of that aspect of the book, but sometimes I do whipe off the covers lightly with antibacterial whipes or windex.

I love to look for used books. Some of my all time favorite books are from yardsales, thriftstores, used bookstores, fleamarkets, and book festivals. Also I have found the greatest one free from my library when they culled their book collections which they do from time to time. I marvel at some of those old copies. I only bought one book from Amazon new that turned out to be a bit moldy smelling. I really want to keep the book but I tried airing it some. I don't know if that mold smell will ever go away but I will probably put up with it. It is not that bad.

I don't recall finding anything of interest in a old book's pages, but now I will have to keep my eye out for books, that might have some left over memorabilia in them...that must be fun to discover. Probably when we went through books and magazines in my grandmother's attic there was interesting things between the pages such as postcards, notes, receits, old train tickets and many of the same things you have all mentioned.

Come to think of it, a friend of mine trash-picks, he found a book with two old baseball tickets in it and they were worth some bucks. Others he found family photos and stuff like that. I am sure he found many more things of great interest in his travels; I had just forgotten.

[Virgil]

So you are the type who reads them with plastic gloves on then, eh Virgil? :lol:
No I don't read with gloves, but you never know who's been handling the book before you.


Virgil, I have bought a lot of used books and I am a germaphobic; I usually try not to think of that aspect of the book, but sometimes I do whipe off the covers lightly with antibacterial whipes or windex.

It doesn't stop me from buying used books, but I must admit I don't shop for used books as much as I used to. I'm not phobic about it, but I do wonder.

[princesspoppi]

I like used books, but will not buy one if it has like a stained cover or something, you never know what it could be! If I think about it too much I probably wouldn't buy any used books, so I am trying to get past it.

[Lioness_Heart]

I've never found anything in a second-hand book, but I frequently find things in my own! They're generally things that I picked up as bookmarks, then forgot where I left them when, two weeks later, I really needed them.

Once in a school library book I found a note written on the inside cover, that sounded really strange. It seemed as though it was from a teacher to a pupil and seemed, while not quite a love note, surpassing the usual teacher-student relationship. I've always wondered what exactly that was about...

[kelby_lake]

What did it say?

[Niamh]

I'm curious now too!

[Lioness_Heart]

It said something along the lines of:

(Jenny? - I can't remember if that was the name or not) To my most dear pupil, I will never forget you.
With all my love from (I can't remember that name either)

It was most mysterious

[Whifflingpin]

I've bought hundreds of second-hand books, and the only unusual thing I found in any of them was a "balloon letter." The book was - is - a biography of Henry Labouchere, who was in Paris when it was besieged by the Germans in 1870. The letter was sent to his mother and left Paris by air balloon to get over the German lines.

[Tallon]

I found some train tickets in a Vonnegut book i was reading dated April 16th 1954, and the day i found it was April 16th 2008, 54 years later to the day, they seems really crisp and new and i use them for a bookmark sometimes. I really like the notes inside covers that you get sometimes. I'm a really big fan of the Found Magazine book, it's really funny and touching.

[andave_ya]

love love second-hand books. Love to wonder who held them, especially if they're very old. Love to wonder what that person was like, what she thought of the book...

Usually I find dollar bills. Once I found $33 in a birthday card for a man who turned 33 in a library book.

[LadyWentworth]

love love second-hand books. Love to wonder who held them, especially if they're very old. Love to wonder what that person was like, what she thought of the book...
This is how I feel whenever I read an inscription. I especially wonder about the person when I see a very old inscription. For some reason those interest me the most. I like to try to imagine what that person may have looked like, too. :)

I have only found little things in books that were used as bookmarks. Nothing exciting. This has happened so rarely to me. But I really do enjoy reading the inscriptions whenever one appears.

[crystalmoonshin]

No I have not found anyting in an old book, but I can happily spend an hour or two browsing for that perfect used book. Ahh, my idea of a good time!

Yeah! I browse the Booksale shop in the mall at least once a week, searching for books written in either French or Spanish. hose are at the top of my priority list but I do buy some hard-to find books (boks that I can't find in a normal bookstore).

So far, the weirdest thing I've found is a report card of a female student. And she's got straight A's!

[Pecksie]

Second-hand books are inevitably cheap and can be found in the bulk of book sales which is much more relishing than pristine books.Pristine books are sold quite prohibitive,I had seen a $30 book and disdain at that price.Though second-hand books are antique,cheap is the vital thing.

I think price is not what is being discussed here --- obviously used books are cheaper than new ones --- I think what is being referred to is the kind of things you can find in used books.

I once found a note a previous owner had written on the front page --- the guy had been in Italy in WWII and had copied down the poem that is engraved on Dante's headstone... very moving.

[Pecksie]

Stop press! I just found a card photograph of Joseph Ratzinger inside Kazuo Ishiguro's "Never Let Me Go".

[Virgil]

love love second-hand books. Love to wonder who held them, especially if they're very old. Love to wonder what that person was like, what she thought of the book...


How do you know it wasn't some unwashed person who was picking his nose as he was turning the pages? :D

[sprinks]

I remember one time, when I was younger, I would always wonder about this book I had that had the name and address of a guy written in it. Many years later, I saw my neighbours ute with his name and business on it, and we'd been friends with them for quite a few years, and thats when it clicked that the boy who used to own the book and the man who lived nextdoor were actually one and the same! :p

But most recently, a week or two ago, I got a lot of second hand books, and in this set of encyclopedia type thing, was a lot of photos and postcards, which were very interesting.

[1n50mn14]

Photographs, the old author's annotations (as long as it's not a high-school copy of the Lord of the Flies with central themes underlined, highlighted, etc.).

I have to say, the most interesting thing I have ever found in a second hand book is a very long letter from an unidentified woman to her best friend/female lover?. It rambles from tangent to tangent and finishes off with, "I'm sorry this is in pencil, but I am not allowed sharp objects right now." It makes me wonder and is such an intrusion into other people's private lives...

[1n50mn14]

(EW. And occasionally, I find people's food-y fingerprints on the pages XP. Which I can't deny doing myself, but other people's bolognese sauce on p.54 of Mother Night doesn't do it for me.)