Treasures between the pages

Finding a note in a used book

We put a Little Free Library in front of our house a few years ago. It’s been a delight. We thought we’d stock it with our leftover books, and we’ve put a few out there, but pretty soon we realized the neighborhood was doing the job. There’s no telling what’s going to be in there on a given day—everything from a book teaching kids the alphabet to a copy of THE JOY OF SEX. Our ‘hood contains multitudes.

Every so often Alix and I grab a book out of there for ourselves. We’ve been thinking about doing some traveling soon, and the other day I found a copy of Rick Steves’ EUROPE THROUGH THE BACK DOOR. I was flipping through the pages when a slip of paper fell out.

(Just in case the image is too faded for your screen, it says: “Hi Leo, To take with you to Bermuda. Have fun planning an amazing walkabout.”)

This is my favorite thing about used books: the little scraps of life people leave behind.

The other day I stumbled across a great post on two women who have started blogs on the things they find inside books—one woman is a librarian in Oakland, the other a French teacher in Oklahoma City.

I’ve found lots of similar things over the years—class notes, recipes, mini-reviews of the books themselves. Years ago I found a photo of a man in an old book … there was no ID and no clues as to who it might be. I’ve still got it around here somewhere.

Each little scrap is the start of its own story. When I found that note to Leo, my first thought was that Leo must be quite a traveler. Bermuda is a British territory, but it’s not part of Europe and not in the Rick Steves book. So Leo was taking a guidebook for one place on a trip to another.

Also, Leo was taking a walkabout. Where to? Well, toward the end of a book there are a few pages on Germany torn out. So maybe there. But the real question is, why? People don’t generally go on a walkabout for no reason.

You’ve probably got half the story written in your head already.

Scraps inside old books are like free dessert—a bonus story on top of the main thing you’re reading.

(Has any author ever written a book that had little notes, photos, etc., stuck inside as part of the experience? That would be hard to pull off logistically, but man, would it be awesome.)

I doubt I’ll ever learn what Leo was up too, and to be honest, I don’t really want to know. The story in my head was probably better. And the best part is, next time I run across the note, I can just make up a new story.

Have you got a story about something you found in a book? Just drop it in the comments.

And speaking of comments: Just a reminder that I’m doing an AMA (Ask Me Anything) post for paid subscribers only that will publish Sept. 15.

Ask me about whatever you like! I’ll be collecting questions in the comments from now through Sept. 14. Any subscriber—free or paid—can ask a question, but only paid subscribers will be able to see the post.

So now’s a good time to subscribe!