From bookmarks to letters, bandages to pictures, ticket stubs to razor blades, anything and everything seem to be hidden among the pages of books. The author of “Forgotten Bookmarks”, Michael Popek, has compiled this collection of things he has found between the pages of books at his family’s used and rare bookstore in New York. One click and there I was, instantly intrigued by this book about things left in books. The title of “Forgotten Bookmarks: A Bookseller’s Collection of Odd Things Lost Between the Pages” made me pause.

Books, whether on actual or virtual shelves, always get my attention, so, I scrolled through the book jacketed recommendations. They seem to know all my tastes in literature and music and even some things I didn’t know I was interested in.Īs I was sipping a steamy cup of tea this morning, there were my A-friends with a whole slew of books they knew I would love. Hi, Penny! We have just the books you are looking for – and they do. By-gosh-by-golly, there are so many emails from them I couldn’t want for more, AND they call me by name. Sometimes they email me more than once in the wee hours of the morning, on the weekend, during a holiday. There have been so many over the years that Popek has started a separate blog just for them, called Handwritten Recipes.My good friends at Amazon are so nice. The items included in the book range from the expected – actual bookmarks, photographs, and receipts – to the unusual, including a hairnet (inside Elements of Mechanics and Machine Design) and unused cap gun caps (inside Tom Swift and His Rocket Ship). If he is able to easily identify the people involved, he might make a note about who they were and where they lived. When there are words involved, he offers a transcription. He generally includes a photograph of the book and the item found. There is little or no commentary from Popek. The book is formatted in much the same way as the blog. It began as a simple little project, a way of sharing his finds with people he thought would appreciate them, and, as of last month, it has taken the form of beautiful book chronicling some of the most memorable items from his collection. The first blog that I ever followed with any sort of consistency, and that I still follow, is Forgotten Bookmarks. It’s a blog curated by Michael Popek, a used and rare bookseller, and it features the forgotten items that he finds pressed between the pages of the books he buys.

Forgotten bookmarks by michael popek