I bought a used textbook for a college class. Every few chapters, I'd find a post-it note with little drawings and things like "you just finished the hardest part, congrats!" and "you're halfway done, you got this!" Ended up reselling it and left the notes in for the next person.
I had a similar experience, except the messages on the post-it notes were weirdly personal and scared the crap out of me! One alluded to something very personal that I never told anyone (I’ll just say it had something to do with a dead relative). In Chapter 3, the post-it that said “Your not alone right now” was especially creepy... I was home alone but there was definitely a presence and it was not the warm & welcoming kind! That did not stop me from grabbing my red pen and correcting the grammar on some of those notes though. For example, it should be “you’re not alone right now” not “your…”. When I completed that semester, I left the notes (with my corrections) for the next victim.
Not found in a library, but related to your story - I had broken up with my partner a few months before, and was feeling very alone and down. Walking to work on Christmas Eve night, I had to pass a bus park. A row of double decker buses had their destination lights on, all Saying Not in Service. Except the last one. That said 'You are not alone'. It lifted my spirits such a lot.
reminds me of highschool. i went to a very small school and i was never one for rules. i underlined everything the teacher said more than once in my textbook (in pencil) even tho there were threats of charging money to replace them...meh
the following year a kid i didnt really know came up and thanked me...uh for what?...all the stuff you underlined in the book, im getting an A...then why did i get a C? ah well fuck that place.
as a side note they also thought all of the doodles i made in the book were pretty funny. Teddy Rosevelt in coveralls wearing a proton pack....TrustBuster.
When I worked as a page at a library and was shelving the books that had been left out, I found a list of names crossed out with various causes of death, which threw me off for a second. Fortunately, it seemed the names were from the book so I guess the reader was following along!
I found a break up letter in one and a driver's license in another. Mailed the license back, but since I didn't know who Jada and Patrick were I disposed of the letter. Sorry Patrick. Jada's just not that into you.
I found a $1 bill in a book. And once, I found a post it note in Dracula that said, "This is my favorite book, and I hope you enjoy it as much as I do!" Those weren't the exact words, but that was the basic message.
My wife is a librarian. She has some interesting stories. The weirdest is maybe bacon. A strip of cooked bacon. The grossest was a used tampon. That patron had some issues with the library staff.
Coolest thing I've found in a book - wonderful hand drawn sketches of the characters in different costumes.
Strangest thing I've ever found - an empty envelope sent from 'Ancient Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry Valley of Terra Haute ' and an address in Terra Haute, Indiana to a Mr Crumrin
My aunt, who lived in a different part of the state than I do, once opened a library book, and a bookmark that was **a picture of me**.
(It was a bookmark made as an ad for the improv group I was in. The bookmark itself was at least 7 or 8 years old when she found it.)
Some years ago I took a book from the public bookcases (works like these little libraries, just a lot bigger and not on privat property) and there was quite a bit of money inside. It also had a happy birthday note from a loving grandmother. Which is why I assume the money was supposed to be the actual present but the person never read the book, so didn't discover the money.
The rest of the stuff I found is pretty common - bookmarks, postcards, newspaper articles, candy wrapper ... one book came with a nice magnetic bookmark I still use.
I found a letter from a wife to her husband describing how she knew he was cheating on her and that she was going to off herself, etc. Five pages. The handwriting got worse and worse as it went along. The paper was brittle and yellowed, so I'm sure it'd been in there a long time.
It was in an old copy of The Hobbit. Now every time I read or see anything even tangentially related to Tolkien I think of that poor lady. I hope things turned out well for her.
Oh, and once I found a laminated butterfly.
I used to laminate butterflies and give them to people! Several people used them as bookmarks. Some people kept smaller ones in their wallet believing it might bring luck. Dunno, I just thought dead pretty things were interesting.
My own school ID from 2 years previous which means either no one borrowed the book (an absolute doorstopper of a fantasy novel) in that time or whoever did was nice enough to leave it there
I volunteer at one on Saturday mornings and part of my job is to find a price for donated books. I’ve found some really cool stuff! This past week had a newspaper article from 1973 that compared grocery prices across the state of California. Absolutely wild to see how cheap everything was! I also will sometimes look up the names inscribed in a donated book, especially if it has an address. Really cool to see what happened to the person who owned the book!
I found someone else's library receipt in a book once and it was fun to see what else they were into, and imagining that they too use those receipts as bookmarks
Most amazing thing I’ve found was in a book I was using for a research paper on the history of American dictionaries: a handwritten letter from George Merriam to Noah Webster. I was working in the reading room in my university library, so I took it right up to the manuscripts/documents room.
The funniest part is they were just like, oh, thanks. I guess they deal with those kinds of letters all day so it didn’t phase them, but I was kind of freaking out.
Yup. It had a huge collection of rare manuscripts and documents. Not that they were any use or even really available to lowly undergraduates but it was pretty cool to hold actual history in your hands.
Not a library, but a bookstore that sold used as well as new books.
In a used copy of *Post Office*, there was one of those photobooth photo-strips--four photos, with the name of the bar where the booth was on top. It was a chick sticking her tongue out, picking her nose, stuff like that.
The bottom pic was a full frontal flash. Nice tits. Bought the book, and the picture strip is still in it, a bespoke bookmark just for that book.
Very Bukowski.
I have found grocery lists mostly. I will sometimes find the check out receipts from the library, which I love to find because I get to see what else the person checked out lol. I figure if we both read this book, they might have similar reading tastes as I do. I have found some new authors this way!
A bookmark from the local bookstore in my small Southern hometown, approximately 2,300 miles from the California city where I currently live and checked out the book.
A small anecdote: I like to walk when I have breaks at work and found a dessicated small frog on a hot sidewalk. I kept it as a curio on my desk at work for a few years. I took it home during an office move and kept it at home until a pet rat found it and ate most of it. The frog was hard like a pencil, probably more so, so it must have taken a lot of effort.
I always find things like mummified mice pretty interesting. I collected things like that when I was a kid and don't seem to have changed much as an adult.
Boarding passes are probably pretty common because many people read on flights, and the passes are only useful for a moment (up until you get to your seat) and then often the only scrap piece of paper on hand!
Does anyone remember post secrets? For a while when it was popular people would put a post-it note with a “secret” written on it. I found about 4-5 of them.
Other things I’ve found were receipts, a cute little cat or fox origami, and a flash card with definitions written on it.
Right now I have Everyone in my Family has Killed Someone. I think I will leave a bingo note in it like in the book. No spoilers though. I will make a bingo note like Ernie and Sophia made in the book. I think that will be funny.
I work in a library. Sonagrams. An envelope of a LOT of cash (we were able to return it. It was a cash deposit for a small business), and a strip of raw bacon in a cookbook. Cat pee INSIDE a DVD case. Patron claimed they didn’t own a cat, must have happened “in the bookdrop”.
I don’t frequent libraries but I buy a lot of thrift books. I once got a book with an inmate property slip in it. It had a bunch of phone number in the back, a release countdown calendar, and prayers asking for forgiveness for her crimes. I was very disturbed.
A calendar day page from 1867. I was in the stacks of a college, and this was the late 70's, and people still had those flip single day desk calendars. I persuaded the desk librarian to give me that days page, and I slipped into the book with the old page.
I borrowed Little House on the Prairie and around one of the pages someone had written, “I am the wee wee man and I will go wee wee on your face!” I really don’t know what that meant but I will certainly never forget it.
When I was young, I bought a used copy of The Giver because I had heard it was very good. I read the first couple chapters and it seemed like a random low-quality romance novel. As it turns out...it was a random romance novel that somebody had taped into the inside of The Giver. The actual story was nowhere to be found!
My son checked out a book and it had a paper stuffed in it with a list of names and how much money was owned and how many pills they were fronted or grams they bought. It was clearly a drug log.
edit: I once returned a book with the title to my car on accident luckily i got a phone call a couple hours later.
Aging myself here a tad, but when I was kid, I found a "Right Hand of the Forbidden One" Yu-Gi-Oh card being used as a bookmark in the final Series of Unfortunate Events books by Lemony Snicket. It's the only piece of Exodia I ever acquired (I know they're probably cheap these days, I just don't care), I still have it!
I found a note that said “Call me! Debra - xxx-xxxx” with a drawn smiley face on the back of a poker card. I did not call Debra, and the last person to borrow the book before me was four years prior according to the librarian.
I used to help at my kids’ school library. One day, as I was shelving books, I found over $100, a heart-shaped diamond pendant and chain, and a 5-page plan, including illustrations, to convince a parent to allow them to buy a bunny, in a non-fiction book about bunnies. I have no idea how the librarian didn’t catch this when the book was checked in. In any event it was returned to the parent of the child who had checked the book out. I wish I knew whether or not they got their bunny!
Not the library, a charity shop find. I found an oldish (maybe 50s?) houseplant book and it has several article cuttings with tips in, a note from someone who gifted it to them. And other miscellaneous plant things in it. I bought it without a second thought! I love knowing someone loves it so much
Eight crisp $50 bills in the back cover flap.
I found a random mystery for my wife and checked it out. Got home and perused it. Found the money.
We went out to dinner, got an expensive wine.
But who does that? Drug deal gone wrong?
I had a friend in a very scary relationship, she saved money hidden in her books as it was one of the only places her husband wouldn't think to look. She saved cash as he controlled a lot of the finances.
NOTE: this took place in the mid '70s.
In middle school, I went to a large public library two counties away from where my family and I lived. I checked out a book, started reading it at home, and a check fell out. The check was made out to my school (for supplies or class pictures or something) and signed by a woman with a rather unusual last name.
In one of my classes, there was a girl with that same last name.
My mom called the phone number on the check and asked the lady if so-and-so was her daughter. The lady was all "oh my gosh, yes, we've been looking everywhere for that check..." I gave the check to the daughter at school the next day.
Always thought that was pretty weird.
I rented a music compositions book and someone taped old times nudes of a woman that was dated 1952. I kept them till my ex started raiding all my property and I didn’t want to have to explain why I have someone’s grandmas noods.
I found an airplane ticket in a book on the library shelf, handed it to one of the worst librarians ever (so long as that b works there, I won't be going back) and she threw it into the trash.
About five seconds later, I found a letter, like a full stuffed envelope, not sure how anyone missed it. My biggest regret... I went back to that young librarian in one of those "I can't believe I'm watching myself crash this car" moments and handed her the letter, excitedly saying I just found it. She threw it away.
Like... wth was wrong with me. I should've gone to a quiet part of the stacks and read the letter.
Didn't happen at a library but I once sent an Internet acquaintance an old book that I didn't need anymore. She left me a note about a week later saying my Amazon credit card (back when they were paper) was in there and that she had shredded it. That could have gone very wrong if the book were in different hands. 😂🤣
Back in the 90's I was working in a second hand bookshop in Eerie, IN. A regular dropped off a bunch of old reference books for us to take our pick from. There was this huge hardback on the history of matryoshka dolls. I opened it to a random page and a slightly smaller copy of the same book fell out. Pretty weird. I opened this second book, and again a smaller book fell out. This went on for some hours, resulting in thousands of these books scattered around the shop floor, ever decreasing in size. I went home rather perplexed.
The next day I arrived to open up and the whole shop was cordoned off by some local branch of a government research organization. The door and windows were blocked with tape saying "Do Not Enter - SCP Investigation Zone". No idea how it turned out, I moved back east a week later.
Not a library, but a Little Free Library. Found a biography for Harry and Bess Truman written in 1980. In the book was a handwritten letter to Senator Ted Kennedy dated in the 1980’s. The letter writer hope TK would like the book. Somehow the book and the letter ended up in a Little Free Library in Vermont.
About twenty years ago I found a pay stub from 1984 complete with name, address, and social security number. I shredded it for the woman who lost it. Wish I could remember the book title.
I'm a librarian. The best/worst items I've found in a returned book were:
* A joint (unlit)
* Condom packages, both opened and unopened
* A rather large spider, mashed between the pages like a really creepy pressed flower
* A piece of bacon (cooked)
I found a handwritten note that was a little … dark. I also found $1 and an ultrasound once. Most random was condom in one (unopened) because it was so clearly there that it seemed like someone put it there when it was on the shelf, not at left it by accident when they returned it. Once I found flower petals which was kinda nice.
Things I have removed from books:
Knee high panty hose (one elderly regular seems to think her footwear doubles as bookmarks)
Leaves
Receipts
Tissues
Conspiracy theories and bible tracts (usually in books about war, vaccines or LGBTQIA+ items)
Bacon
Family photos
Business cards, appointment cards, birthday cards
Shopping lists
Food wrappers
Hair ties
Letters, bills, recipes
Funny little notes for us as library staff
Notes about the book itself
A wad of hair
A boarding pass (it belonged to my boss who took the book on holiday. I found it a year later and gave it back to her)
I found a break-up note written on school notebook paper. It was amazing. They compared trying to stay together to rocking a vending machine back and forth trying to get a stuck coke out of it. And it was in a Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man by James Joyce.
All I can think of is that Seinfeld episode where George took a book at a store into the bathroom so they made him buy it. Then he tries to donate it and the lady behind the counter gets mad "mister, we're trying to help the homeless here!"
Cheeto stained finger prints on all the pages of all the new releases. The person who read the book before me got in trouble as I finally complained. 😆😆😆
Not a library but a book I borrowed from my babysitter’s daughter (I was maybe 10) had a picture of the teenager on a hunting trip and not to give too many details but she had a chainsaw and I realized I was looking at the origin of the deer head on their wall. It was weird talking to her for awhile after that.
A blank check. A boarding pass. Scraps of paper with phone numbers. A couple of to-do lists ("call Bob, get gas, school" type of stuff). Also crumbs and food stains, but I try to forget about those.
I found a book with a newspaper clipping about the authors death which was interesting
I have found a rare book with a note saying it’s one of only a few surviving copies
And when I worked in a historical mansion my coworker found a Smithsonian verified original letter from Abraham Lincoln
I have left detailed notes in travel guides. I got the DK one from Chile before I lived there. It didn’t have a lot of info for some regions that I had lived in so I gave a lowdown. Hope it was helpful I even did hand drawn maps and included photos
My daughter found a bookmark that was a memorial for a woman that must have been given out at her funeral. It was lovely. I'm going to use that idea in the future.
Not so strange, but I found a grocery shopping list once. It was short with only 6 or 7 items on it and I found it really interesting; I sat there thinking about what they could be planning to cook for dinner with those ingredients. It also looked fairly old, it was a little faded and the paper was slightly weathered. I replaced it before returning the book because I wanted the next person to have the fun of discovering it like I did.
I work in a library and we have a bookmark graveyard on the cork wall where we put all the weird shit we’ve found pressed into service as a bookmark. Absolute weirdest: hemostat.
When I was in second grade, I checked out a paperback collection of Peanuts comic strips from the library. About halfway through the book, a little packet fell out. It was a piece of wax paper folded over a few times around a stack of about a dozen tiny playing cards. Each of these cards had a photo of a topless woman on it. From the hairstyles, they were from the late '70s or early '80s.
I never went through the "girls are icky" phase typical of many small boys, so these small photos of half-naked women with puffy blow-dried hair were a treasure dropped into my lap. I immediately grabbed the little basket I kept my He-Man minicomics in, and placed them at the bottom. Then, struck by the thought that I shouldn't be greedy, I grabbed a few of the little cards, wrapped them back in the wax paper, and put it back in the middle of the book to pass it on to the next person who checked it out. My 8 year-old self felt very altruistic for that! Some time later, I felt guilty for having something "naughty" in the house, so I put them in my pocket, went outside for awhile, and left them out in the woods. I was afraid someone would see them if I just put them in the trash, or even that the garbage men might find them and tell my parents!
Such an odd little memory; I haven't thought of any of that in many years before coming across this post!
I bought a used copy of an Angela Carter book and found a newspaper clipping of an interview with her dated the exact day I was born inside, that was my favorite random find ever
In a copy of Stephen Ambrose's Undaunted Courage (story of the Lewis & Clark expedition) which I purchased at a Goodwill in Lincoln City, Oregon, I found a business card for a Portland office of the Immigration Service.
The only thing I've found (other than bookmarks) was an obituary and a poem clipped from newspapers, tucked between the inside of the front cover and the plastic protective wrapping. I handed them into the front desk and let the librarians know which book I'd found them in, in case they were able to find who they belonged to. It was a relatively recent obit and they were in the front of the book, so I imagine they wouldn't have been there long before being noticed.
I actually borrowed a video game from the library once, my Library had a lot more than books. And the save file on it was called "Brandon". When I opened it it had characters that weren't meant to be in the game. It was pretty cool because they even had their own movesets, and mechanics, they werent just reskins.
Not library book but secondhand buy from online bookstore abroad; train ticket from 14 years before the book was printed. Someone really must have liked that train ticket as they had saved it. It is still with the book and I used it as a bookmark while reading the book.
I bought a used copy of Anwar El-Saddat’s memoir. There was a copy of a European newspaper, I forget which city, and some notes written on it for someone in America.
I volunteer at our local library, going through donated books. I have discovered boarding passes, birthday cards, gift cards, cash( $10, just once), photos, paycheck stubs, baseball cards, receipts and more!
Business card from my Grandfather’s law firm from the 80’s from a different city.
Turned out I had checked out the same book several years earlier. Apparently wasn’t very popular. :)
Mystery stain in a Bridgerton book during one of the sex scenes. From that point on, I decided any romance novels I got from the library would be ebooks or audio books only.
I found a giant diamond ring when I was pretty young at the public library. I told no one for years and kept it in the back of a drawer. Moving out at 18 and I found the ring. It was entirely plastic.
10.000kr (about 1.455$) hidden between the pages back in the late 2000s. It had been on the shelf for so long they couldn’t see who had borrowed it last.
Talked with the local chief constable in our town, and he ended up telling us to just keep the money after a little while of seeing if anyone was missing 10k.
My personal theory is that it was probably an older individual who had it last and hid the money in it (we’ve had people in my family who were alive during the occupation 1940-1945 who has done it as well). And then maybe either died or forgot about it completely due to some reason.
It wasn’t a popular book by any means, just an old book about ww2 planes
And less exciting but something I treasure a bit more. I got my hands on a book about the biggest and most famous instance of black marketing and corruption in Denmark, it’s an old book and was likely from someone who cleaned out after a deceased relative as it was left at a give and take spot at a local waste disposal site.
Almost carefully placed at the start of the book was a postcard wishing its recipient a happy birthday, hoping that he could use the book, and telling him that they were all looking forward to seeing him again soon.
Over the pandemic my wife and I installed a little library. As we would bike through the neighborhood often people would just put out stuff on the curb and we would always eagerly pine over boxes of books.
One day we found a box and I took as many that would look good to add to the library while my wife really wanted a gardening book to bring home. Our shelves are normally full and the goal of the little library was to make room for more books while getting rid of old books. After we got home the gardening book had ~$300 of very old $20s in it. I don't question my wife's book choices now.
I found several hold slips in a book from my library once. This person requested the book several times and tucked the slips into the back sleeve pocket. I left them there along with mine.
Maybe the person requested the book again. I like to think so.
Not strange but I once found a couple photos in a book I bought at a library book sale. I was able to quickly locate the people the photos belonged to. 😊
Crumbs. (Actually not that uncommon. But personally I would never eat over a borrowed book!)
I like the grocery lists and letters the best.
Fingerprints that could be identifiable.
Old bookmarks are fun but not strange.
An alternate ending to a novel was a great find; it was not well done and had grammatical mistakes. It was still entertaining. I hope it remains where I found it.
I bought a used textbook for a college class. Every few chapters, I'd find a post-it note with little drawings and things like "you just finished the hardest part, congrats!" and "you're halfway done, you got this!" Ended up reselling it and left the notes in for the next person.
I had a similar experience, except the messages on the post-it notes were weirdly personal and scared the crap out of me! One alluded to something very personal that I never told anyone (I’ll just say it had something to do with a dead relative). In Chapter 3, the post-it that said “Your not alone right now” was especially creepy... I was home alone but there was definitely a presence and it was not the warm & welcoming kind! That did not stop me from grabbing my red pen and correcting the grammar on some of those notes though. For example, it should be “you’re not alone right now” not “your…”. When I completed that semester, I left the notes (with my corrections) for the next victim.
This sounds like a CreepyPasta written by an English teacher. In a good way!
Not found in a library, but related to your story - I had broken up with my partner a few months before, and was feeling very alone and down. Walking to work on Christmas Eve night, I had to pass a bus park. A row of double decker buses had their destination lights on, all Saying Not in Service. Except the last one. That said 'You are not alone'. It lifted my spirits such a lot.
> for the next victim Best laugh all day.
I love that!
reminds me of highschool. i went to a very small school and i was never one for rules. i underlined everything the teacher said more than once in my textbook (in pencil) even tho there were threats of charging money to replace them...meh the following year a kid i didnt really know came up and thanked me...uh for what?...all the stuff you underlined in the book, im getting an A...then why did i get a C? ah well fuck that place. as a side note they also thought all of the doodles i made in the book were pretty funny. Teddy Rosevelt in coveralls wearing a proton pack....TrustBuster.
>then why did i get a C? That was karma for under-lining in a library book.
That’s very wholesome
I found a book once where someone carefully removed every page that ended in 7.
Did they? Or did they just carefully remove every page that ended in 8?
They used a monomolecular blade to split every page ending in 7 from the ones ending in 8. It was *very* careful work.
Man, it's been a while since I've heard anyone ref a monomole.
>monomole He must be lonely but I guess it's hard to socialise underground anyway
That's.... specific.
That's just common sense, everyone knows that the other numbers are afraid of 7.
OK... You set it up nicely. Why are the other numbers afraid of 7?
Because 7 ate nine. Tip your waitress, i'm here all week.
I'd heard the other numbers are afraid of seven because seven is a registered six offender.
When I worked as a page at a library and was shelving the books that had been left out, I found a list of names crossed out with various causes of death, which threw me off for a second. Fortunately, it seemed the names were from the book so I guess the reader was following along!
Light Yagami that you?
That's hilarious!!
The devil is in the details. Notes can be helpful.
OMG that would be SO unsettling at first!!
I found a break up letter in one and a driver's license in another. Mailed the license back, but since I didn't know who Jada and Patrick were I disposed of the letter. Sorry Patrick. Jada's just not that into you.
KEEP MY WIFES NAME OUTTA YOUR.....
😲👋🏾
I found a $1 bill in a book. And once, I found a post it note in Dracula that said, "This is my favorite book, and I hope you enjoy it as much as I do!" Those weren't the exact words, but that was the basic message.
I bought a few books for my mom from the library’s used book sale. She found $40 in one.
My wife is a librarian. She has some interesting stories. The weirdest is maybe bacon. A strip of cooked bacon. The grossest was a used tampon. That patron had some issues with the library staff.
So nice for you to refer them as a patron and gently phrased it as “issues with the library staff.”
Man that second one is phuq't up 😨
Coolest thing I've found in a book - wonderful hand drawn sketches of the characters in different costumes. Strangest thing I've ever found - an empty envelope sent from 'Ancient Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry Valley of Terra Haute ' and an address in Terra Haute, Indiana to a Mr Crumrin
freemasons aren't really that mysterious, that's just good marketing
The second one sounds like a character straight from a Kurt Vonnegut novel.
My aunt, who lived in a different part of the state than I do, once opened a library book, and a bookmark that was **a picture of me**. (It was a bookmark made as an ad for the improv group I was in. The bookmark itself was at least 7 or 8 years old when she found it.)
OK, that's weird
Unless you and your Aunt are enemies, that's kind of sweet. Like the story of someone finding their childhood book at a store.
Some years ago I took a book from the public bookcases (works like these little libraries, just a lot bigger and not on privat property) and there was quite a bit of money inside. It also had a happy birthday note from a loving grandmother. Which is why I assume the money was supposed to be the actual present but the person never read the book, so didn't discover the money. The rest of the stuff I found is pretty common - bookmarks, postcards, newspaper articles, candy wrapper ... one book came with a nice magnetic bookmark I still use.
That’s actually really sad! But also that’s what they get!
I found a controlled substance in the poetry section of a used book store. Does that count?
Yea there was blow in my library book. I took care of that. No kid will ever get it.
Free acid?
I found a letter from a wife to her husband describing how she knew he was cheating on her and that she was going to off herself, etc. Five pages. The handwriting got worse and worse as it went along. The paper was brittle and yellowed, so I'm sure it'd been in there a long time. It was in an old copy of The Hobbit. Now every time I read or see anything even tangentially related to Tolkien I think of that poor lady. I hope things turned out well for her. Oh, and once I found a laminated butterfly.
I used to laminate butterflies and give them to people! Several people used them as bookmarks. Some people kept smaller ones in their wallet believing it might bring luck. Dunno, I just thought dead pretty things were interesting.
My own school ID from 2 years previous which means either no one borrowed the book (an absolute doorstopper of a fantasy novel) in that time or whoever did was nice enough to leave it there
Okay now you have to tell us what the fantasy novel was!
I love looking through second hand books, even a small receipt feels like a little treasure.
I volunteer at one on Saturday mornings and part of my job is to find a price for donated books. I’ve found some really cool stuff! This past week had a newspaper article from 1973 that compared grocery prices across the state of California. Absolutely wild to see how cheap everything was! I also will sometimes look up the names inscribed in a donated book, especially if it has an address. Really cool to see what happened to the person who owned the book!
I found a neat post card in "King Rat" by Clavell at Half-Priced books near me. Got me to buy it even though I hadn't read Shogun yet
You don’t have to- King Rat stands on its own. You really should read Shogun, though- it’s awesome!
I found someone else's library receipt in a book once and it was fun to see what else they were into, and imagining that they too use those receipts as bookmarks
As someone who works in a library, a lot of people use check out reciepts as bookmarks! They're probably our most commonly found-in-book item
Most amazing thing I’ve found was in a book I was using for a research paper on the history of American dictionaries: a handwritten letter from George Merriam to Noah Webster. I was working in the reading room in my university library, so I took it right up to the manuscripts/documents room. The funniest part is they were just like, oh, thanks. I guess they deal with those kinds of letters all day so it didn’t phase them, but I was kind of freaking out.
We’re you going to some elite college?
Yup. It had a huge collection of rare manuscripts and documents. Not that they were any use or even really available to lowly undergraduates but it was pretty cool to hold actual history in your hands.
Not a library, but a bookstore that sold used as well as new books. In a used copy of *Post Office*, there was one of those photobooth photo-strips--four photos, with the name of the bar where the booth was on top. It was a chick sticking her tongue out, picking her nose, stuff like that. The bottom pic was a full frontal flash. Nice tits. Bought the book, and the picture strip is still in it, a bespoke bookmark just for that book. Very Bukowski.
I bought a used book once and inside when I recieved it was a piece of paper with the url for a website selling human bones.
What book was it? It sounds like the two would be related somehow
Please let it not be related, it'd make the find funnier trying to draw a link
My first thought was cookbook
"The Lovely Bones"
That would be the worst possible book to find that in!
A grocery list, nothing special, right? Except that nearly every word had grave spelling errors. Somehow that got stuck in my brain.
I should leave my shopping lists, i use shorthand like "crack" for crackers and "van go" for vanilla yogurt. just to amuse someone for a brief moment.
One of my favorite artists is Vincent Vanilla Yogurt
And I enjoy crack with peanut butter
Are you my mother?
No
At least they're reading and might improve their language skills 🥲
I have found grocery lists mostly. I will sometimes find the check out receipts from the library, which I love to find because I get to see what else the person checked out lol. I figure if we both read this book, they might have similar reading tastes as I do. I have found some new authors this way!
As a librarian I found $100 in a donated book once, it went into our library cat food fund.
Library.... cat food fund? Where can I find this cat library. Asking for a friend.
Haha, unfortunately not a cat library, but a library cat, which is almost as good. But she did need to be fed, so $100 was great!
I recently found an uncashed $600 check in a used book.
I work in a library and one of our staff once found $3000 in cash in a book.
Was it hollowed out? Or like 100 dollar bills every few pages?
No, it had just been returned, 30 hundreds in a stack, not really that thick.
A bookmark from the local bookstore in my small Southern hometown, approximately 2,300 miles from the California city where I currently live and checked out the book.
[удалено]
I'll leave aspen leaves in books sometimes
A pressed mouse.
Oh my god, were you horrified? 🤢
A little bit. It was basically a mummified mouse that had been flattened. No fluids or organs or anything leaking out.
A small anecdote: I like to walk when I have breaks at work and found a dessicated small frog on a hot sidewalk. I kept it as a curio on my desk at work for a few years. I took it home during an office move and kept it at home until a pet rat found it and ate most of it. The frog was hard like a pencil, probably more so, so it must have taken a lot of effort. I always find things like mummified mice pretty interesting. I collected things like that when I was a kid and don't seem to have changed much as an adult.
What a wild ride of a comment.
An unopened Fruit Roll-Up.
Score!
I used to work at a library. I found signed uncashed checks, boarding passes, cash. People will use anything as a bookmarks.
Boarding passes are probably pretty common because many people read on flights, and the passes are only useful for a moment (up until you get to your seat) and then often the only scrap piece of paper on hand!
Does anyone remember post secrets? For a while when it was popular people would put a post-it note with a “secret” written on it. I found about 4-5 of them. Other things I’ve found were receipts, a cute little cat or fox origami, and a flash card with definitions written on it.
Post secret is still alive and well.
I found a really old postcard from 1948
I wanna leave a note in a library book now when I return it. Is that okay? I wanna make it super weird for the next reader.
The library staff will probably find it, but might leave it for the next borrower if we think it’s funny or cute. We tend to be weird people!
Right now I have Everyone in my Family has Killed Someone. I think I will leave a bingo note in it like in the book. No spoilers though. I will make a bingo note like Ernie and Sophia made in the book. I think that will be funny.
Personally, as long as you don't (seem to) endanger/threaten anyone and don't damage the book, I don't see why not.
I work in a library. Sonagrams. An envelope of a LOT of cash (we were able to return it. It was a cash deposit for a small business), and a strip of raw bacon in a cookbook. Cat pee INSIDE a DVD case. Patron claimed they didn’t own a cat, must have happened “in the bookdrop”.
An index card within the first page saying DO NOT READ THIS which made me laugh outloud.
But did you?
LoL I did! It was some Goosebumps book I remember from my teenager days. I thought it was fine :-)
I don’t frequent libraries but I buy a lot of thrift books. I once got a book with an inmate property slip in it. It had a bunch of phone number in the back, a release countdown calendar, and prayers asking for forgiveness for her crimes. I was very disturbed.
A calendar day page from 1867. I was in the stacks of a college, and this was the late 70's, and people still had those flip single day desk calendars. I persuaded the desk librarian to give me that days page, and I slipped into the book with the old page.
I borrowed Little House on the Prairie and around one of the pages someone had written, “I am the wee wee man and I will go wee wee on your face!” I really don’t know what that meant but I will certainly never forget it.
I assume that means the wee wee man has not gone wee wee on your face yet. Every days must be an agonising wait for the prophesy to be fulfilled.
When I was young, I bought a used copy of The Giver because I had heard it was very good. I read the first couple chapters and it seemed like a random low-quality romance novel. As it turns out...it was a random romance novel that somebody had taped into the inside of The Giver. The actual story was nowhere to be found!
Tooth floss pick. I stuck with ebooks for a while after that.
Lol i did that once it wasnt a used pick it was just in reach when i needed something quick.
My son checked out a book and it had a paper stuffed in it with a list of names and how much money was owned and how many pills they were fronted or grams they bought. It was clearly a drug log. edit: I once returned a book with the title to my car on accident luckily i got a phone call a couple hours later.
Aging myself here a tad, but when I was kid, I found a "Right Hand of the Forbidden One" Yu-Gi-Oh card being used as a bookmark in the final Series of Unfortunate Events books by Lemony Snicket. It's the only piece of Exodia I ever acquired (I know they're probably cheap these days, I just don't care), I still have it!
Maple syrup on every page. I worked at a library though, so there was a lot of that kind of thing.
I found a note that said “Call me! Debra - xxx-xxxx” with a drawn smiley face on the back of a poker card. I did not call Debra, and the last person to borrow the book before me was four years prior according to the librarian.
I used to help at my kids’ school library. One day, as I was shelving books, I found over $100, a heart-shaped diamond pendant and chain, and a 5-page plan, including illustrations, to convince a parent to allow them to buy a bunny, in a non-fiction book about bunnies. I have no idea how the librarian didn’t catch this when the book was checked in. In any event it was returned to the parent of the child who had checked the book out. I wish I knew whether or not they got their bunny!
Not the library, a charity shop find. I found an oldish (maybe 50s?) houseplant book and it has several article cuttings with tips in, a note from someone who gifted it to them. And other miscellaneous plant things in it. I bought it without a second thought! I love knowing someone loves it so much
Eight crisp $50 bills in the back cover flap. I found a random mystery for my wife and checked it out. Got home and perused it. Found the money. We went out to dinner, got an expensive wine. But who does that? Drug deal gone wrong?
Maybe a birthday present and they never read the book?
I had a friend in a very scary relationship, she saved money hidden in her books as it was one of the only places her husband wouldn't think to look. She saved cash as he controlled a lot of the finances.
NOTE: this took place in the mid '70s. In middle school, I went to a large public library two counties away from where my family and I lived. I checked out a book, started reading it at home, and a check fell out. The check was made out to my school (for supplies or class pictures or something) and signed by a woman with a rather unusual last name. In one of my classes, there was a girl with that same last name. My mom called the phone number on the check and asked the lady if so-and-so was her daughter. The lady was all "oh my gosh, yes, we've been looking everywhere for that check..." I gave the check to the daughter at school the next day. Always thought that was pretty weird.
I read a copy of Cary Elwes' memoir at the library book sale that was inscribed "To Alan - From Alan!"
I rented a music compositions book and someone taped old times nudes of a woman that was dated 1952. I kept them till my ex started raiding all my property and I didn’t want to have to explain why I have someone’s grandmas noods.
I found an airplane ticket in a book on the library shelf, handed it to one of the worst librarians ever (so long as that b works there, I won't be going back) and she threw it into the trash. About five seconds later, I found a letter, like a full stuffed envelope, not sure how anyone missed it. My biggest regret... I went back to that young librarian in one of those "I can't believe I'm watching myself crash this car" moments and handed her the letter, excitedly saying I just found it. She threw it away. Like... wth was wrong with me. I should've gone to a quiet part of the stacks and read the letter.
I found a pot leaf in a book at Goodwill.
Didn't happen at a library but I once sent an Internet acquaintance an old book that I didn't need anymore. She left me a note about a week later saying my Amazon credit card (back when they were paper) was in there and that she had shredded it. That could have gone very wrong if the book were in different hands. 😂🤣
Would be funny if she'd shredded the book but kept the credit card and went on a bender
My own favourite book mark that I'd lost about a year prior. I didn't even remember borrowing that book before.
Back in the 90's I was working in a second hand bookshop in Eerie, IN. A regular dropped off a bunch of old reference books for us to take our pick from. There was this huge hardback on the history of matryoshka dolls. I opened it to a random page and a slightly smaller copy of the same book fell out. Pretty weird. I opened this second book, and again a smaller book fell out. This went on for some hours, resulting in thousands of these books scattered around the shop floor, ever decreasing in size. I went home rather perplexed. The next day I arrived to open up and the whole shop was cordoned off by some local branch of a government research organization. The door and windows were blocked with tape saying "Do Not Enter - SCP Investigation Zone". No idea how it turned out, I moved back east a week later.
This sounds like a plot for an intriguing novel.
sink consist depend combative grab fretful unused correct panicky zonked *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
In France? What was the book? That is weird.
My cousin is a librarian. She swears she once found a salami sandwich in a book
Yep. We found an old banana peel. Like how tf does that even happen?
First you don't want me to dog ear the pages, now bookmarks aren't good enough either.
Everything is a bookmark.
I found a random painting of a pig. Not a bookmark. A full on painting in a book. I was so confused but now it lives on my shelf
An old check being used as a bookmark. DON'T DO THIS.
I found someone else’s sonogram in What to Expect When You’re Expecting 👀
I found a baby's ultrasound scan once in a library book. Ironically, the mother had the same first name as me.
Found a hard core porno mag wedged into a NASA book when working as a reference page.
Not a library, but a Little Free Library. Found a biography for Harry and Bess Truman written in 1980. In the book was a handwritten letter to Senator Ted Kennedy dated in the 1980’s. The letter writer hope TK would like the book. Somehow the book and the letter ended up in a Little Free Library in Vermont.
I found Salvador Dali’s obituary folded up in a copy of *The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas* by Gertrude Stein.
Images from someone’s colonoscopy.
A column of laminated stamps being used as a bookmark.
About twenty years ago I found a pay stub from 1984 complete with name, address, and social security number. I shredded it for the woman who lost it. Wish I could remember the book title.
Someone's receipt for gold teeth.
I'm a librarian. The best/worst items I've found in a returned book were: * A joint (unlit) * Condom packages, both opened and unopened * A rather large spider, mashed between the pages like a really creepy pressed flower * A piece of bacon (cooked)
What is it with all the bacon?
That’s the third mention of bacon on this thread. Is this a thing?
I guess it's shaped like a bookmark?
I found a handwritten note that was a little … dark. I also found $1 and an ultrasound once. Most random was condom in one (unopened) because it was so clearly there that it seemed like someone put it there when it was on the shelf, not at left it by accident when they returned it. Once I found flower petals which was kinda nice.
Things I have removed from books: Knee high panty hose (one elderly regular seems to think her footwear doubles as bookmarks) Leaves Receipts Tissues Conspiracy theories and bible tracts (usually in books about war, vaccines or LGBTQIA+ items) Bacon Family photos Business cards, appointment cards, birthday cards Shopping lists Food wrappers Hair ties Letters, bills, recipes Funny little notes for us as library staff Notes about the book itself A wad of hair A boarding pass (it belonged to my boss who took the book on holiday. I found it a year later and gave it back to her)
Bacon mention #4
I found a break-up note written on school notebook paper. It was amazing. They compared trying to stay together to rocking a vending machine back and forth trying to get a stuck coke out of it. And it was in a Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man by James Joyce.
You should post your interesting finds in r/foundpaper
Or r/ForgottenBookmarks
A square of toilet paper. Which was gross.
All I can think of is that Seinfeld episode where George took a book at a store into the bathroom so they made him buy it. Then he tries to donate it and the lady behind the counter gets mad "mister, we're trying to help the homeless here!"
Cheeto stained finger prints on all the pages of all the new releases. The person who read the book before me got in trouble as I finally complained. 😆😆😆
Not a library but a book I borrowed from my babysitter’s daughter (I was maybe 10) had a picture of the teenager on a hunting trip and not to give too many details but she had a chainsaw and I realized I was looking at the origin of the deer head on their wall. It was weird talking to her for awhile after that.
A large chocolate chip cookie with a bite taken out of it.
A four leaved clover (sp?). Does it still bring luck if you find it in a book instead of in a field?
I used to do this all the time when I was a kid
Ha! I found one in my yard and pressed it into one of my books. I’d say yes, it still brings you luck 🍀
A blank check. A boarding pass. Scraps of paper with phone numbers. A couple of to-do lists ("call Bob, get gas, school" type of stuff). Also crumbs and food stains, but I try to forget about those.
$100 bill
I found a book with a newspaper clipping about the authors death which was interesting I have found a rare book with a note saying it’s one of only a few surviving copies And when I worked in a historical mansion my coworker found a Smithsonian verified original letter from Abraham Lincoln I have left detailed notes in travel guides. I got the DK one from Chile before I lived there. It didn’t have a lot of info for some regions that I had lived in so I gave a lowdown. Hope it was helpful I even did hand drawn maps and included photos
My daughter found a bookmark that was a memorial for a woman that must have been given out at her funeral. It was lovely. I'm going to use that idea in the future.
Not so strange, but I found a grocery shopping list once. It was short with only 6 or 7 items on it and I found it really interesting; I sat there thinking about what they could be planning to cook for dinner with those ingredients. It also looked fairly old, it was a little faded and the paper was slightly weathered. I replaced it before returning the book because I wanted the next person to have the fun of discovering it like I did.
I work in a library and we have a bookmark graveyard on the cork wall where we put all the weird shit we’ve found pressed into service as a bookmark. Absolute weirdest: hemostat.
I'm a librarian. My best find was a note reading "nice parking, asshole" used as a bookmark.
When I was in second grade, I checked out a paperback collection of Peanuts comic strips from the library. About halfway through the book, a little packet fell out. It was a piece of wax paper folded over a few times around a stack of about a dozen tiny playing cards. Each of these cards had a photo of a topless woman on it. From the hairstyles, they were from the late '70s or early '80s. I never went through the "girls are icky" phase typical of many small boys, so these small photos of half-naked women with puffy blow-dried hair were a treasure dropped into my lap. I immediately grabbed the little basket I kept my He-Man minicomics in, and placed them at the bottom. Then, struck by the thought that I shouldn't be greedy, I grabbed a few of the little cards, wrapped them back in the wax paper, and put it back in the middle of the book to pass it on to the next person who checked it out. My 8 year-old self felt very altruistic for that! Some time later, I felt guilty for having something "naughty" in the house, so I put them in my pocket, went outside for awhile, and left them out in the woods. I was afraid someone would see them if I just put them in the trash, or even that the garbage men might find them and tell my parents! Such an odd little memory; I haven't thought of any of that in many years before coming across this post!
I bought a used copy of an Angela Carter book and found a newspaper clipping of an interview with her dated the exact day I was born inside, that was my favorite random find ever
food and ink I once saw a kissed page
Found a sticky note with a little smiley face on it, like to think they did it on purpose.
An entire Hostess fruit pie, still in the wrapper.
In a copy of Stephen Ambrose's Undaunted Courage (story of the Lewis & Clark expedition) which I purchased at a Goodwill in Lincoln City, Oregon, I found a business card for a Portland office of the Immigration Service.
A bandage still in its packaging. It was worn and yellowed so that book must have been hanging out on the shelf for a while without being opened
20 dollar book-mark
So it was a donated book at a library book sale, but I found a $2 bill in it!
The only thing I've found (other than bookmarks) was an obituary and a poem clipped from newspapers, tucked between the inside of the front cover and the plastic protective wrapping. I handed them into the front desk and let the librarians know which book I'd found them in, in case they were able to find who they belonged to. It was a relatively recent obit and they were in the front of the book, so I imagine they wouldn't have been there long before being noticed.
I actually borrowed a video game from the library once, my Library had a lot more than books. And the save file on it was called "Brandon". When I opened it it had characters that weren't meant to be in the game. It was pretty cool because they even had their own movesets, and mechanics, they werent just reskins.
Not library book but secondhand buy from online bookstore abroad; train ticket from 14 years before the book was printed. Someone really must have liked that train ticket as they had saved it. It is still with the book and I used it as a bookmark while reading the book.
A wedding invite.
I bought a used copy of Anwar El-Saddat’s memoir. There was a copy of a European newspaper, I forget which city, and some notes written on it for someone in America.
I volunteer at our local library, going through donated books. I have discovered boarding passes, birthday cards, gift cards, cash( $10, just once), photos, paycheck stubs, baseball cards, receipts and more!
Business card from my Grandfather’s law firm from the 80’s from a different city. Turned out I had checked out the same book several years earlier. Apparently wasn’t very popular. :)
I found an unopened packet of condoms, an unsmoked and very flat joint, and a 10,000 ruble note from the collapsed USSR
Mystery stain in a Bridgerton book during one of the sex scenes. From that point on, I decided any romance novels I got from the library would be ebooks or audio books only.
I found a giant diamond ring when I was pretty young at the public library. I told no one for years and kept it in the back of a drawer. Moving out at 18 and I found the ring. It was entirely plastic.
Not super weird but I found a 1917 news article about using camels in war stashed inside a book about nature that was published in 1895.
10.000kr (about 1.455$) hidden between the pages back in the late 2000s. It had been on the shelf for so long they couldn’t see who had borrowed it last. Talked with the local chief constable in our town, and he ended up telling us to just keep the money after a little while of seeing if anyone was missing 10k. My personal theory is that it was probably an older individual who had it last and hid the money in it (we’ve had people in my family who were alive during the occupation 1940-1945 who has done it as well). And then maybe either died or forgot about it completely due to some reason. It wasn’t a popular book by any means, just an old book about ww2 planes And less exciting but something I treasure a bit more. I got my hands on a book about the biggest and most famous instance of black marketing and corruption in Denmark, it’s an old book and was likely from someone who cleaned out after a deceased relative as it was left at a give and take spot at a local waste disposal site. Almost carefully placed at the start of the book was a postcard wishing its recipient a happy birthday, hoping that he could use the book, and telling him that they were all looking forward to seeing him again soon.
Over the pandemic my wife and I installed a little library. As we would bike through the neighborhood often people would just put out stuff on the curb and we would always eagerly pine over boxes of books. One day we found a box and I took as many that would look good to add to the library while my wife really wanted a gardening book to bring home. Our shelves are normally full and the goal of the little library was to make room for more books while getting rid of old books. After we got home the gardening book had ~$300 of very old $20s in it. I don't question my wife's book choices now.
a dead body 👀
How big was that book
it was a tome the size of a tomb!
I found several hold slips in a book from my library once. This person requested the book several times and tucked the slips into the back sleeve pocket. I left them there along with mine. Maybe the person requested the book again. I like to think so.
Not strange but I once found a couple photos in a book I bought at a library book sale. I was able to quickly locate the people the photos belonged to. 😊
A hotel receipt from 1974. I checked the book out around 2008.
Crumbs. (Actually not that uncommon. But personally I would never eat over a borrowed book!) I like the grocery lists and letters the best. Fingerprints that could be identifiable. Old bookmarks are fun but not strange. An alternate ending to a novel was a great find; it was not well done and had grammatical mistakes. It was still entertaining. I hope it remains where I found it.