Morning everyone who loves second-hand books and bookshops:
I'm researching an essay about strange/fascinating/moving artefacts found in second hand books such as old love letters/newspaper cuttings etc that have a bearing on your experience of the book. A reply/ repost hugely appreciated!!
I'm researching an essay about strange/fascinating/moving artefacts found in second hand books such as old love letters/newspaper cuttings etc that have a bearing on your experience of the book. A reply/ repost hugely appreciated!!
Comments
& the moon phases were fortuitously included in the historic calendar site I used, so didn’t take too much digging.
It is nice feeling a connection with someone across the decades, feels a bit like communing with a ghost.
Someone had written on the first page, "To a good cook - may the next year be a much happier one for you". I've always assumed that the book was gifted to a woman who had lost her husband or son in WWII.
i apologize to all the romantics; please forgive me.
Found this card in a copy of The War of the Worlds https://thatsmyskull.blogspot.com/2011/08/science-fiction-like-me.html
https://www.npr.org/2022/08/02/1114851706/library-notes-books-collection
https://www.messynessychic.com/2013/11/21/15-forgotten-things-found-inside-books/
https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/surprising-discoveries-pages-old-books
To Buy:
Beer
More Advil
Damn!
Good luck with your project.
Of course, someone decided that wasn't enough to keep the book.
Their loss. I have it now for over 20 years.
- gift copies exchanged between Anne Hudson and Margaret Aston (with some fun things tucked inside)
- a photo of the author (French medievalist) in what appears to be a militia hut in central Africa
- a postcard sent between Dominican monks
- a gift copy from my grandmother to her fiancé
One, the number of older books that have a name written in them and a date. I have a first-edition Our National Parks with a date written in pencil, but I see this often.
(Sorry, no pix as we’e moving and their packed.) 1/2
(Again, also packed.) 2/2
(I’ve lived in LA for 20 years now)
https://atkinsbookshelf.wordpress.com/2018/03/13/there-should-be-a-word-for-that-bibliorts/
"Over the water blink the lights,
Where the high holy judges play,
(Secured and walled well in the castle)
They drink and throw the glass in the fire,
And sing of friends and animals so dear."
3 eggs, 1/4 remoulade, 1/4 oil.
I don't know why they thought anyone would want to join up after reading that book.
It’s an invitation to what would have been the last meeting of the prestigious Austrian Werkbund, under the direction of the architect Josef Frank. The announcement says the meeting, which had been canceled in December because of a general ban on assemblies, would be held on Feb. 8, 1934.
Thrilled about five years after when author had a massive global smash (though I hope she changed agent).
both the sweet and the snarky...
i have ones for schoolboys, sweethearts, and family...
and wherever there is a name or date, especially more than one, i add my own... to give other people a kick!
https://www.aclu.org/news/national-security/senator-ervin-no-knock-warrants-and-fight-stop-cops-smashing-homes-way
It gave me a vision of someone riding the bus in a suit with hat and gloves, reading.
I also have a copy of Utopia in the front cover of which the owner had pasted a (diligently dated) question to the editor from a newspaper, enquiring as to the USSR's opinion of the text.
https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/639ahfn2239fuhmdzopl8/davidson-PASS-IT-ON.pdf?rlkey=mrck573kcy7tbvyz05e6k0i7p&st=qnscfbnn&dl=0
Another find: someone's *extremely detailed* application for "The Biggest Loser."
https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2018/01/29/the-lost-giant-of-american-literature
The book:
If you're wondering the book was native son
"Decca" is the nickname of Jessica Mitford, author of "The American Way of Death" and the red sheep of the famous Mitford sisters. "Bob" is her husband, Bob Truehaft, leftwing lawyer whose clients included Angela Davis. "Tee" is the widow of Charles Addams, famously macabre cartoonist.
Inscription was dated 3 months before I bought it. 💔
possibly one of the best second hand bookstores anywhere
https://www.pennpress.org/9780812252682/book-traces/
Also the book in question was Gödel, Escher, Bach by Douglas Hofstadter, which, if you don’t know it, is the sort of book that can make or break a relationship.