Found in a Book: The Things Previous Owners Leave Behind (Part 1)
By Ali · 8 min read · 4 June 2026
Every secondhand book that comes through the door at StrangeBooks has already had a life before it reaches me. Someone bought it, read it (or didn't), maybe passed it on to someone else, and eventually it ended up in a charity shop, a car boot sale, or a box at the end of someone's drive. That history is most of what I love about this job.
But occasionally a book gives up a little more than just its wear and tear. Sometimes, tucked between the pages, there's something left behind. Not a bookmark exactly, or not always. Sometimes it's the nearest thing to hand when someone needed to mark their page and then, somehow, it was never retrieved.
I've been photographing these finds as I go, and I have enough now to share the first batch. Some are mundane. Some are puzzling. One is absolutely perfect. Here they are.
A proper bookmark, for once: Steve Jobs by Walter Isaacson
Let's start with an actual bookmark, because they do turn up occasionally. This one is a British Red Cross fundraising bookmark, reproducing a painting by Arthur J. Lyons of a Voluntary Aid Detachment nurse standing in a rose garden. The back reads "Thank you for supporting the Red Cross" and asks the reader to use the bookmark to inspire others to support the charity's work. The VAD nurses were the civilian volunteers who helped staff field hospitals and casualty clearing stations during the First World War, so the image has a quiet weight to it.
The contrast with the book is almost too good. Walter Isaacson's doorstep biography of Steve Jobs is many things, but "WWI nurse in a rose garden, please donate" isn't the usual vibe. Whoever was reading this clearly had range, and a charitable streak.
The original delivery slip: Ring of Bright Water by Gavin Maxwell
This one stopped me in my tracks. Inside this World Books edition of Gavin Maxwell's beloved otter memoir was the original delivery slip from when it was ordered, from World Books, The Reprint Society Ltd., on the High Street in Aldershot, Hants. The address on the slip shows it was sent to a reader in River, Dover, Kent. The title is printed in the bottom right corner: Ring of Bright Water by Gavin Maxwell, October Book.
It had travelled from Aldershot to Dover and then, eventually, to me in Basingstoke. That slip has been inside this book since the day it arrived. I found it decades later. I don't know why that feels so significant, but it does.
A Daunt Books bookmark: Precipice by Robert Harris
Robert Harris's Precipice is a thriller set in the final days before the First World War, and it was keeping company with a bookmark from Daunt Books, the famously beautiful travel bookshop on Marylebone High Street. The bookmark quotes the Sunday Telegraph calling it "the most beautiful bookshop in London, designed for travellers who like reading."
Someone bought this bookmark at Daunt Books, used it in a Robert Harris thriller, and then the whole lot ended up with me. There are worse fates.
The newspaper cuttings: Gary Player's Golf Class
This is the one that made me laugh out loud. Inside a copy of Gary Player's Golf Class, a collection of the world-famous strip cartoon from the Sunday Express with 162 lessons for the weekend golfer, were several loose newspaper cuttings of the very same Gary Player's Golf Class strip. From the Sunday Express.
Someone was so committed to Gary Player's golf tips that they were reading the book and cutting out the newspaper strips as they appeared. Either that or they were using them as a very on-theme page marker. Either way, the dedication is admirable.
A London Underground map: The Air Pilot's Manual 5: Radio Navigation and Instrument Flying
The Air Pilot's Manual is a serious technical textbook for people learning to fly. Volume 5 covers radio navigation and instrument flying. It is not, by any stretch, a light read.
The bookmark inside it was a pocket London Underground map, printed with the LRT Registered User number and dated 1995. Someone studying how to navigate by radio instruments was simultaneously navigating the Tube. I like to think they passed both.
An out-of-stock notice: The Spirit of Counsel by Martin Israel
Tucked inside this copy of The Spirit of Counsel, a book about spiritual perspectives in counselling, was a printed card from SPCK Bookshops in Cardiff. It's an order notification, and the "Out of Print" box has been marked with an X. The handwritten order was for "1 x Font Children's Bible.” (I think it’s Font but I could be misreading…)
Someone ordered a children's Bible from SPCK Cardiff, was told it was out of print, and at some point used that disappointing little card as a bookmark in a very different kind of spiritual reading. There's something almost poetic about that.
A Garfield gift tag: The Voyage of the Dawn Treader by C.S. Lewis
And finally, my favourite of this batch. Inside a Lions paperback edition of The Voyage of the Dawn Treader (C.S. Lewis, Narnia, the one with the ship and Reepicheep the mouse) was a Garfield gift tag bookmark. Garfield is pictured holding a towering stack of presents. On the tag it reads: To: Peter. From: Richard.
Peter was perhaps given this book by Richard, and Peter kept this tag inside it, and now I have both. I hope Peter enjoyed it. I hope Richard knew what a good gift he was giving.
That's the first seven. There are plenty more where these came from and Part 2 will follow whenever I have enough to share.
If you've ever found something unexpected inside a secondhand book, I'd love to hear about it.
All books shown are sourced and sold by StrangeBooks.
What will you find?
Every book comes with a past! I photograph every book at StrangeBooks myself, so you can check the condition, the spine and the pages before it lands on your doorstep. Whatever's tucked inside is a bonus.
