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Buried in Books in Brooklyn
By
Jen Carlson
Published Jun 7, 2008
Modified Jun 7, 2008
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By
Jen Carlson
Published Jun 7, 2008
Modified Jun 7, 2008
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Books can be the perfect place to stick an orphaned piece of paper; bills, to-do lists, unsent notes often get discarded in between pages -- so it's not a surprise when an unknown scrap comes floating out of a used book. Adam Tobin, owner of Unnameable Books in Brooklyn, has now created a display inside his store for just such found objects.
“It’s a motley assortment,” he said. “We’ve been doing it for about two years since opening the store. The display quickly took over the back wall and now it’s spreading to other places, and there’s a backlog of stuff that we haven’t put up yet. There are postcards, shopping lists, and concert tickets but my favorites are the cryptic notes. They are often deeply personal and can be very moving.”
“It’s easy to find things in books that are very dated,” explained Adam,” Such as a newspaper advert for elastic bands from the 19th century. My personal favorite is an ad from the 1950s that reads ‘Rinsing Dacron Curtains in Milk Makes Them Crisp, Stiff, Just Like New.’”
Tobin has even found a letter written by CS Lewis! AbeBooks has an assortment of tales of what other booksellers have found -- including one who sold a microwave cookbook containing $40,000 (the buyer didn't return the money). What's fallen out of your used books? Hopefully not bacon, a strip of which one seller found amongst some tattered pages.
Photo of Unnameable Books via threecee's flickr.
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Jen Carlson
Jen Carlson is a former WNYC and Gothamist editor.
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