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Amusing or Disturbing finds in 2nd Hand Books

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Ria

20:39 / 10.10.03

I found a signed copy of LULU IN HOLLYWOOD on sale for a dollar.

owned it like a year before I realized the fact.

STOATIE LIEKS CHOCOLATE MILK

09:20 / 11.10.03

A friend of mine said he found a first edition of Ulysses on e-Bay with "Rot, rot, rot... I've never read such an appalling book in my life" or some such written in the front. It was going for a couple of grand.

bitchiekittie

14:10 / 11.10.03

this is actually a really interesting thread. I've always been fascinated with small found bits of other people's past.

I've never found anything interesting in someone else's book. but once one of my school notebooks went missing for a day and when I got it back someone (a classmate who I'd already rejected several times) had drawn some pictures in a circle on a peice of paper. after that first sheet there were a shitload of papers with one line repeated, over and over, to the effect that I love him. it scared me enough that I threw the whole thing away, and did the same to a cassette tape he later left among my things.

Whisky Priestess

22:25 / 11.10.03

God, I buy so many second-hand books that I must have an entire holiday resort's worth of postcards from them ...

Found 40p in a second-hand bag today, and have found endless receipts, shopping lists etc. in books. My best one was a rather mundane postcard dated a few years earlier, which rather anally contained the sender's address. I decided to write back to them in the persona of the addressee, reminding them of people they had mentioned (John broke his leg, went to Millicent's funerla the other day, love to the boys). I have no idea how it went down of course, but it felt surreal and fun to do it.

Squirmelia

20:32 / 12.10.03

I found a photo in a book by Paul Coelho, that I can't remember the name of. It was of a girl who looked like she was on holiday, and written on the back was something like "My father likes this picture, but I think I look fat". I put it back in the library book, but last time I looked for it, the book wasn't there, so maybe the girl has reclaimed the photo.

A book that I'd written was scribbled on when I left it in a pub by mistake - rows of numbers, some crossed out, so I presume someone had played Bingo on it!

Busigoth

13:14 / 13.10.03

A pressed, dry marijuana leaf in a book returned to the Interlibrary Loan Department of a certain university library, which shall here remain nameless.

rory

13:49 / 13.10.03

A birth certificate. Handy to know that I could establish a whole new identity if I wanted to.

15:47 / 13.10.03

Another annotation: in a copy of The Second Sex, under the information that women's ovaries release eggs from alternate sides on alternate months:
Is this TRUE?! CHECK!!!
DeBeauvoir is spreading evil lies.
Whenever the word "bollocks" crops up in the margins, it's in a neat lower-case round hand that doesn't look at all irate.
I once put a slice of Ryvita into a nun's much-loved copy of The Towers of Trebizond, and I feel bad about that.

STOATIE LIEKS CHOCOLATE MILK

16:06 / 13.10.03

Whisky P: I decided to write back to them in the persona of the addressee, reminding them of people they had mentioned (John broke his leg, went to Millicent's funerla the other day, love to the boys).

That's just fucking ace. I'm not sure if you're a comic genius, or if you're EVIL AND MUST BE STOPPED!!! but that's just... fucking ace.

lolita nation

16:19 / 13.10.03

In a copy of the New Yorker I found on the street (I found a big stack, which I took to use for collages), I found a check for $0.35, made out to Paul D. Witty. That shit was on my refrigerator for months. Obviously Witty's money had been eaten by the pay phone, and Witty actually called up and asked for his money back. But he never cashed the check!

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