Westerly Sun Column | Bookmarks Part of What Makes Books Fun

The bookmark may be one of the most useful — but least utilized — inventions in history. I don’t think I’ve used a real one in decades, and it seems that I’m far from alone in this. My coworker started a collection of “bookmarks” that we’ve found stuck between the pages of books, and it’s quite the hodgepodge of items, from playing cards and restaurant menus, to a real, live, $1,000,000 bill. A friend from another library found a slice of American cheese neatly tucked in a book. I don’t know for sure what books our collection of treasures were returned in, but I can certainly speculate … after all, if you can tell a lot about a person by the books they read, the same must be true about what they use for a bookmark.

For instance, let’s take the little marker/label from a potted Lavender plant, which came from Gro ’n Sell in Chalfont, PA. I image this was found in a book like “How to Garden Indoors & Grow Your Own Food Year Round” by Kim Roman, though it may have been someone more obscure, such as “Wild Witchcraft” by Rebecca Beyer. Alternately, perhaps the book borrower received the plant as a housewarming gift from visiting relatives, in which case it’s just as likely it as found in an interior design guide, like “The Art of Home” by Shea McGee.

As I mentioned before, playing cards are a popular bookmark choice — we’re slowly making our way up to a full deck! My favorite is a Queen of Spades with an illustrated Queen Elizabeth I on it, which originally made me think of “The Last Tudor” by Philippa Gregory. A reverse image search showed that it came from a Little Feminist Playing Cards deck, though, so it’s possible the owner had also borrowed the board books “Little Feminist” or “Little Scientist” by Emily Kleinman, with illustrations by Lydia Ortiz.

Some of the items we find are truly random. I imagine the sticker of a comically drawn Tardigrade must have come from “A Curious Collection of Peculiar Creatures” by Sami Bayly, while the index card with a handwritten list of words ending in “ar” and “or” fell out of “Beautiful & Pointless: A Guide to Modern Poetry” by David Orr. And I hope that the person who opted for a torn-off “Best If Used By” label from November 2023 was enjoying “How to be a Conscious Eater” by Sophie Egan. Then again, some of our findings are so sweet that I just hope they eventually make their way back home. Like the drawing a little girl named Mary created for (presumably) her dad, who is not just “awsome” and “exellet”, but also a “fast runner”. It sounds like you’re the whole package … the only thing you’re missing is your bookmark!

I’ll never know exactly which books these “markers” came from, but it’s fun to think about. Perhaps, in the near future, we’ll even put them on display for you to muse over!

by Cassie Skobrak, Adult Services Librarian