Books may contain more than just words

I talk a lot about the benefits and virtues of ebooks and other digital media on this blog, almost to the point of obsession. However, too often I fail to mention that I still love good old fashion print books. It doesn’t matter if it’s a mass market paperback, or a newly released hardcover, or even a trade paperback – they all offer the promise of an entertaining story and maybe the chance to learn something.

There is something else that print books offer, that if you read the New York Times Books Section today, you probably will know what I’m talking about: The things left in books. I came across this interesting essay about various objects found in books, usually by workers at used book stores:

I speak of any of those bizarre objects — scissors, a used Q-tip, a bullet, a baby’s tooth, drugs, pornography and 40 $1,000 bills — that have been discovered by the employees of secondhand bookstores, according to The Wall Street Journal and Abebooks.com. Mystery surrounds these deposits like darkness.

The objects found, seemingly at random, are still part of the book’s "narrative", the one that tells the story of the people who read these books. An interesting question to ask would simply be "Why?" Why did you leave a bullet in that book? Why drugs? But an equally interesting question would also be what specific books were these objects left in?

A bullet left inside a book about guns, or war, or violence of any kind, probably wouldn’t be that interesting. But a bullet found inside of a children’s book of fairy tales might raise some eyebrows. I’d also like to know what 40 $1,000 bills were doing inside a book. And what book, because it is certainly one I want to read.

The essay also makes a point of saying that readers aren’t the only ones leaving behind stuff in their books. Authors are just as guilty, but many seem to leave things intentionally:

But the motives of some depositors — the novelist David Bowman, for instance — are knowable. "I was cleaning out a drawer and thought, Let’s do something with this," Bowman said of the day four years ago when he stumbled upon all of the rejection letters from agents and editors about his first novel, "Let the Dog Drive" (1993). "Some of the letters were nasty," he said in a phone interview. So Bowman scooped them up, tucked them in between the pages of a first edition of the book and sold the noxious bundle to the Strand, New York City’s famous used-book store.

There’s also the author who saved money in his books:

Sherman Alexie figured out a way around botched safekeeping during his hard-drinking college days at Gonzaga and Washington State Universities in the 1980s. Fearful that he would spend all his money during a bender, he would "slide tens and twenties into random books in my apartment." Months later, having forgotten about the money, he’d find it again. "It was like winning little jackpots," he wrote in an e-mail message, adding, "I’m sober now, have been sober for many years, and I keep my money in banks."

Sherman Alexie, by the way, is a great author worth reading! The items left behind inside of books is an interesting subject – which might make a great subject for a book (if this has been done, please enlighten us). I know that there are people out there who study the comments other readers have made in the margins of books, and using them as a sort of "secondary" text.

Have you ever found an interesting item in a book? Have you ever left an interesting item in a book? If so, let us know in the comments below! I usually find interesting doodles and comments in my college textbooks, and I’m sure I left a few of my own, but that’s probably about it.

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