Lost and Found Between the Pages

Henry Alford at the New York Times has a lovely piece about the strange things that people leave in books - objects accidentally forgotten, the deliberately placed and those used as aide-mémoire.

All together now - You can't do this with an e-book!

Bloody Bookmarks!

We've discussed bookmarks and the funny things folks insert to keep their pages before.

But how does the idea of a stream of blood appeal?

Read more about these "liquid bookmarks" on Boing-Boing [Via] and buy them here.

Just nice for halloween!

Bookmark Bliss

Chas Newkey-Burden talks about his love for the book mark on the Guardian blog and finds there are plenty of fanatics out there, including Dutchman Frank Divendal, who owns over 80,000 of them. There are some more really nice examples here, and a shop dedicated solely to them.

I am very attached to the bookmarks that wander into my life but just leave them for safe keeping inside the books on my shelves. So if I have a collection at all, it is a very accidental one.

We talked about bookmarks before not so long ago.

What The Best Dressed Books Are Wearing

Here's a silly question just because I'm feeling trivial today.

I'd simply like to know, what do you use as a bookmark?

I'm a particularly hopeless case because people often give me beautiful bookmarks.

Chet gave me a wonderful "book bungee" like the ones above which also keeps the pages of the book together in my bag.

Anna the Russian Poet/Princess gave me a couple of delightful "book thongs", which are not only dead pretty but sit between the pages without slipping out.

But somehow they never happen to be around when I need to mark my page, and I end up using all kinds of things, bits of torn off newspaper, serviettes, receipts, queue numbers, sweetie wrappers, and ringgit notes to keep my place! I often pick up advertising cards, especially those for arts events, and leave them between the pages when I finish the book as a kind of postcard to posterity. I've even been known to use a sandwich on occasion, but honestly wouldn't recommend it. (Too much DNA on the pages.)

But I would never, never, fold down the corner of a page. My dad used to do that with library books all the time, and it drove me mad!

I've come across some good bookmarks in second-hand books. Once I found a £10 in a novel and used it to buy Adam Ant's Kings of the Wild Frontier album (which shows how long ago it was!), and then there was a fascinating old letter in a Victorian novel.

I like it when bookshops give you a nicely designed bookmark as a freebie with your purchase. Only Silverfish does this here, I think, which is one lost marketing opportunity. But some of the UK and US bookshops have really nicely designed ones that you want to keep.

Bookmarks have a history as long as the book, and some have become collector's items.

Meanwhile, if you feel at a bit of a loose end today, why not have a go at making this rather splendid origami bookmark?