What things have you found in books left behind by (presumably) a previous reader?
In my copy of Ice by Anna Kavan (a 1970 paperback of a 1967 novel) I found a bookmark from Uncle Hugo’s Science Fiction bookstore in Minneapolis, Minnesota. The book must have somehow made its way from there to Murfreesboro, Tennessee, where I bought it.
Other times I’ve found folded up sheets of homework, shopping lists, advertisements, receipts, etc., all used a bookmarks.
Any odd things you’ve found?
Just a couple of weeks ago, I found a $20 bill in a book. I suspect I put it there myself, many years ago. Now I’m a bit worried about the huge lot of books I carted off and donated last year. Maybe I used to be a millionaire.
A newspaper clipping from states away, a prescription slip, I imagine the person left it by accident (I wouldn’t want a stranger to know my name and the drugs I was on)
I once used a razor blade for a bookmark because that’s what was nearby (a co-worker saw that and said, “that is so hard core” lol), I hope I never left that behind!
Pressed maple leaves (in a 1940s home decorating book).
A business card from a compendium of southern California radio affiliates. Probably from the 1940s given the fonts used. Don’t remember what it fell out of. I presume it was handed out to prospective advertisers, though.
Any time I buy an old cookbook or recipe pamphlet, there’s bound to be handwritten recipes, an expired coupon, or a folded-up 1970s pie filling label that someone either wrote notes on, used as a bookmark, or just saved because they liked it.
Ages ago, a former GF had given me a pic of when she was 18, and I had stored it inside my Illusion of Life book.
I still keep it in there, and sometimes I wish I might have known her at that time in her life.
Someone in my friends circle couldn’t find his birth certificate and was unable to renew his passport. He spent weeks looking for it and eventually gave up and had a certified copy issued. But once it arrived, he found the original tucked inside his copy of The Art of War. Ever since then, whenever anyone couldn’t find anything (regardless of its size and shape) , it was always suggested they check The Art of War.
See the picture at -
I’m still looking for something I put in a book maybe 40 years ago. I had (have?) a Walter Payton rookie card in perfect condition that I wanted to keep safe so I put it in a book. I remember at the time thinking that I’d better remember I was doing this, lest I give the book/card combo away at some point. I still have most of my books from that time, but none have the card in it.
This is like the old The Electric Company sketch where they put the safe combination inside the safe so it wouldn’t get lost!!
Having worked in a library for 22 years, I have found:
Money-both coins and bills from various countries
A wrapped condom
A slice of cheese
Photos
Pieces of mail
Various documents
Actual bookmarks
Copious margin notes in a borrowed library book by Charlie Pierce, taking great exception to everything written and providing helpful, uhm, revisions as a service to me. Thanks a lot, buttmunch.
I used to work in the college library for my work-study. (NYC) I never found things left inside books. But sometimes people would outwit the tattle tapes pasted into the spines by just cutting away the stitched pages and then returning the empty book cover to the cart.
This happened once with a book of erotic art. I had to show the result to my supervisor. I expected to get yelled at, but he just sighed and said, “Potroast, you’ve gotta’ understand. A lotta’ lonely people spend a lotta’ time here.” Ah, youth!
Better wrapped than unwrapped.
I was on a geocache hunt once, and had a clue that was a call number corresponding to a book about geocaching in our local library. Written in pencil inside the front cover were the coordinates of the cache.
Four vintage mint Easter Seals Christmas stamps, worth a buck or two.
Inside a used Far Side collection I found what appears to be a clipping from a German newspaper. The only remotely interesting thing is a picture of a guy inside what looks like a stripclub. 
Going through my grandmother’s books which are all in Hungarian, I found letters from family left behind when they fled the country during WWII.
A couple years ago at the library I found a lottery ticket inside Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki and His Years of Pilgrimage. Unfortunately it wasn’t a winner. Book wasn’t very good either.
An old Magic the Gathering card. Atog. Found it in a library book. It makes a good bookmark, although I prefer to use lands for bookmarks.
