I’m not talking about the kind you buy to put in a book to mark your place, I’m mostly talking about incidental bookmarks, the ones you grab to mark your place and often, these can be found in second hand books. You can find many things in second hand books, not just the authors work. I have found receipts posing as bookmarks, usually from the bookshop the book was bought from, sometimes train and bus tickets, shopping lists and even little notes, memos etc.
Then there’s this. It was just a piece of paper within the pages of a second hand book, which I believe was being used as a bookmark. It’s one of my favourites.
I have also found family photos and holiday postcards saying ‘the food is okay, but can’t wait to get back for some fish and chips, it just rained four days straight, but the night life and tequilas are great. Wish you were here!’
I usually leave those things in books. It’s as if those makeshift bookmarks belong there, the same goes for photos, notes and postcards, as long as they’re not incriminating of course, or have I.D info on them. I will remove and destroy pieces of paper and ‘incidental bookmarks’ that have too much info on them, like someone’s address for example.
Some ‘bookmarks’ are meant to stay within the book. You found them in the book so you keep them in the book. Sometimes they belong there. It’s nice just to pass it along to the next owner of the book. It’s a piece of the past that
connects the previous owners and readers of the book to the next and to the moment in time it’s being read. Bookmarks and incidental bookmarks can add to that whole wonder of second hand books.
Things In My Head 
Finding a bookmark in a second-hand book suggests the previous reader failed to finish it I guess.
<blockquote> ‘the food is okay, but can’t wait to get back for some fish and chips,
it just rained four days straight, but the night life and tequilas are
great. Wish you were here!’</blockquote>
The only more British postcard message I can think of would be “Staying calm and carrying on”.
<i>Wish You Were Here</i> is my favourite post-Syd Pink Floyd Album. I’m having its title inscribed on my headstone.
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I put my bookmarks back into the book when I finish reading one (put randomly). It’s more out of a habit than the inability to finish a book.
Might vary from person to person.
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Yes, so many different reasons why bookmarks, or improvised ones might be left in a book. I think that’s a nice thing you do. You’re adding to the experience.
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I love finding literally anything in second hand books. Makes me feel close to the reader community.
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I feel that too. Thanks Kajal.
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I like ‘staying calm and carrying on’ a euphemism for ‘get me the f*** out of here!’
I have to be careful with Pink Floyd. I think they’re great but I have to stay away from them nowadays, if I’m the least bit depressed. It used to be the opposite. The link didn’t work btw.
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“I like ‘staying calm and carrying on’ a euphemism for ‘get me the f*** out of here!’”
Well, yeah.
After a lot of time backpacking around Asia I reached the conclusion that culture shock for Brits begins at their front doorstep and gets progressively worse with every step they take away from it.
The only explanation I can think of for Britain’s global Empire was a determination to keep all things foreign away from Blighty (unless it could be converted to Stirling and safely repatriated),
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