Q: Are there any items that you would especially like to be able to give back?Ī: There's one letter that I found inside a book published in 1901, where a soldier is telling his mother about his plans to marry his sweetheart - "I know you don't like her, but I'm going to marry her whether you like her or not" - and asking, rather defensively, for her blessing.
The razor blades, by the way, were found in a how-to book on stenciling. Is there some special significance, for instance, in one reader's placing a first draft of a wedding invitation as a bookmark into a copy of 1912's "The Sinking of the Titanic"?
It also underscores the intimacy of the relationship between reader and book, sometimes in a humorous way. Popek's book - an ode to the bookmark - has a bittersweet quality, because it highlights the satisfyingly tangible nature of print books, which today are so quickly being replaced by digital e-books. "Forgotten Bookmarks" is a treasure for the bibliophile who loves books as objects. Popek's book is organized into chapters that include "Photographs," "Letters, Cards, and Correspondence," and "The Old Curiosity Shop: From Four-Leaf Clovers to Razor Blades." Each entry contains a photo of the item and a transcription of any handwriting, as well as publication information and a photo of the front jacket of the book where it was found. Popek, 34, spoke recently by phone from the shop about his bookmarks. His book, "Forgotten Bookmarks: A Bookseller's Collection of Odd Things Lost Between the Pages," was published last month by Perigee Books. Then during a single week three years ago, Popek was contacted by four different literary agents. Eventually it became easier for him to start a simple blog. Friends found the emails - complete with photos of the item and the book he found it in - "hilarious" and asked him to keep sending more. "Forgotten Bookmarks: A Bookseller's Collection of Odd Things Lost Between the Pages," by Michael PopekĪbout five years ago, Popek started to email friends about, as he writes in the introduction, some of the "treasures within the treasures" - interesting things he found left in books.
0 kommentar(er)
