Unusual choice of bookmark... and prime example of why it's best to check through your books before you donate them.

"I remember once being told that Anne of Denmark came from a highly cultured family; then I discovered that she was a Catholic"...

Castle-based problems, 1999.

'Wig's choice of book was an encyclopaedia of birds in the British Isles. Seems fitting, somehow...

LOVE this one. Looks like this family all got some fetching new dressing-gowns for Christmas... lucky devils.

A very exciting find inside a teen romance novel- the postcard had no stamp on it, so I put one on and popped it in the post. Hopefully someone will get a pleasant surprise and/or blast from the past. Hopefully Jessica and Poppy are still friends and Jessica still lives in the same place..!

Quite a practical recommendation from someone with such decorative handwriting...

This little gem was found in a book of Romantic poetry.

...Wrong on all number of levels.

Sometimes notes are best written brief and to the point.

A Novel Idea

For about three years now, I have been volunteering in a well-known charity bookshop. The shop survives entirely on donations and it is part of my job to sort through these donations, before pricing and eventually selling. We get a huge variety of books donated from a wide variety of people: some beautiful; some not so much (this goes for the people as well as the books). What is often the most interesting part of sorting through books is finding all sorts of notes, postcards, photos and trinkets inside the books themselves... a book-lover will use anything as a bookmark!

I have designed this blog as a way to display my 'treasures' to the masses, and also pay some kind of homage to the eccentrics and note-writers of the world. You brighten up my days.