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What have you found written in second-hand books?

Started by Barry Admin, October 09, 2017, 08:09:39 PM

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Famous Mortimer

My old library, "Hammer Of The Gods", the Led Zeppelin biography. Someone had gone through and scratched out all the references to what a bad lad Jimmy Page was, until about halfway through when a later reader had penned "STOP FUCKING DOING THIS". This inspired a fair bit of debate, with several other hands agreeing that it was sort of annoying to not be able to read the weird sex and magick stuff.

It's one of the chief regrets of my life I never just kept the book and paid the "lost" fee, but sadly it is lost to time.

Brundle-Fly

Bought this for a few quid in Highgate Village Oxfam last year. Made me a little sad this book lovingly signed and messaged by Michael Palin has found its way to a charity shop after all these years.

Oh, Jackie, you didn't take heed and now look at the state of this world. It's all your fault!




Neville Chamberlain

Strange. I've bought tons of books from charity shops over the years and have never found anything more exciting than the price scribbled in pencil in the top right-hand corner of one of the first pages :-(

Brundle-Fly

Quote from: Neville Chamberlain on January 03, 2018, 12:35:53 PM
Strange. I've bought tons of books from charity shops over the years and have never found anything more exciting than the price scribbled in pencil in the top right-hand corner of one of the first pages :-(

It's amazing what you find in charity shops if you look hard enough. Ask Head Gardener. Last year I also picked up a Prodigy live DVD signed by the whole band for £1:50. I wouldn't particularly choose to buy a Prodigy live dvd in 2017 but I did like them once upon a time and I felt it needed a home.

Phil_A

Second hand bookshops tend to be better for this sort of thing, particularly if you stumble on the collections of people that have passed on and the family have just off-loaded the books without even looking through them. You find all kinds of things. Ancient receipts used as bookmarks, postcards, letters...

The most interesting I ever found was a letter sent to someone's university pal during the war, immaculately preserved in a book of poetry. Annoyingly it got misplaced somewhere over the years and I've no idea where it is now.


Cuellar

Not scribbled, but I found this once:



I'm choosing to view 'promoting the appreciation and sharing of Beauty, Truth and Tradition in our transient society of 'progress' and relativism. For more info visit our facebook page' as irony.

Famous Mortimer

I got a biography of baseball legend Ted Williams which is absolutely crammed with scribbles:



Until, rather suddenly, in the middle of page 230, the annotator writes "Oh" as if they've had a moment of self-awareness and stops.


gloria

"Congratulations
on your Great
Standard Grade
results!
- 2007 -
from,
Uncle Pete
&
Sarah xxx"

MoonDust

I'm glad some of these have dates written in them too. For some reason I like to know when these mystery people read their books.

George White

0nce asked an uncle's brother-in-law if I could have his copy of Palin's Pole to Pole?
Said yes. While looking through, found at the index, signed, "Yours, Michael Palin".
So he had possibly accidentally given me something  signed by one of my childhood heroes.

easytarget

Quote from: Sin Agog on November 12, 2017, 09:58:18 PM
No, it wasn't my whole thumb.  I found that inside the tape deck of a ZX Spectrum at a Cash Converters in Skegness.
The +2, call it by it's name


Looks like Mark didn't want the extra copy of The Devil's Dictionary, I wonder how Michelle feels about that?

Sin Agog

^ I genuinely love that book.  Although that inscription reminds of the time I, as a churlish English teen punk visiting my Canadian fam, gave my aunt a copy of Rushdie's The Satanic Verses. When another aunt asked her what present she got from me, aunt number one replied, "...The Satanic Verses." To which aunt number 2 responded: "That's funny, I thought you said The Satanic Verses."  "I did."  "Oh."

Captain Crunch

When you see it, you'll shit bricks! 



Or maybe just smile and get that song stuck in your head.

From the 'must read' list at the back of this:




shh

In 'The Exploits of Engelbrecht'



And inexplicably in the notes for The Mayor of Casterbridge


Sebastian Cobb

Quote from: easytarget on February 08, 2018, 06:43:04 AM
The +2, call it by it's name


Looks like Mark didn't want the extra copy of The Devil's Dictionary, I wonder how Michelle feels about that?

This reminds me of the Acid Jazz - Totally Wired LP I picked up with 'Happy Christmas '95' and some illegible name on it in that silver metallic pen that rattles that some people only use at Christmas.. Made me think about it's life, and also sad that it would be given away, it's rather good.

holyzombiejesus

Quote from: Captain Crunch on December 07, 2018, 01:39:04 PM
When you see it, you'll shit bricks! 



Or maybe just smile and get that song stuck in your head.


I don't get it...

buttgammon


Ferris

Second hand copy of Richard III

"YOU WILL BE THE WANKER'S WIFE NOW!"

Never made sense of that.

Bingo Fury

Quote from: buttgammon on December 18, 2018, 11:00:05 PM
Howard's Way/Howard's End...

Fuck, I thought it was the apostrophe I was supposed to shit bricks over, I didn't even notice that.

biggytitbo

I found a handwritten list of nude scenes in films with approx timings inside a halliwells circa the mid 90s. Thank you whoever that was, pre Internet that list was fucking gold dust.

Tony Tony Tony

At my secondary school our German teacher was a Mr 'Wuff' Westerdale. One day I found an inscription inside the school library copy of Mein Kampf that read "To my dearest Wuffles, love Adolf".

Genius.

JesusAndYourBush

Quote from: Bingo Fury on December 18, 2018, 11:51:58 PM
Fuck, I thought it was the apostrophe I was supposed to shit bricks over, I didn't even notice that.

I never noticed it either.  The best I could come up with song-related was "Waugh... livin on a prayer!"

Ray Travez

Just found inside 'Chasing the Scream-the first and last days of the war on drugs', bought in Oxfam, North Yorkshire, a typed letter from Johann Hari to his friend, asking her to take a look and let him know what she thinks. It's got his London address and email on it and is dated 11/11/14.

Dearest Liz, it begins, Hello! As promised, here - at long last! - is a copy of my book. I'd be delighted to know, as a writer I massively admire, what you make of it.

There are also some workings out in biro, monetary incomings and outgoings. Looks like "£3,600 mummy" and "out- Rainbow 6K". All very mysterious.

Small Man Big Horse

I found a copy of Bridget Christie's A Book For Her in Oxfam today, which she'd signed "To Gemma and Tom, if you split up Tom gets the book, love Bridget" - though clearly as it had been given away I'm guessing Gemma nicked it and then donated it to annoy Tom.

Famous Mortimer

A biography of baseballist Ted Williams:



This is just one page of hundreds with a similar level of scrawl in it (it does stop about a hundred pages before the end, indicating the reader got bored or died). I feel like they underlined a little too much for it to mean anything, but maybe I'm the weird one for not doing this.

There was a biography of Led Zeppelin in my local library where someone had gone through and tippexed out all the references to Jimmy Page being a rum 'un with the young lasses, drug use and so on, until about three-quarters of the way through, a future reader had scrawled "STOP DOING THIS YOU FUCKING IDIOT".

I also told a story on here once about a Jeremy Clarkson book with a bunch of offensive scribble on the front cover, but it appears, sans any evidence to the contrary, I was just remembering a bit from Robin Ince who talked about doing that to Clarkson books in charity shops. It still sort of feels like one of my memories, though.

Ferris

Quote from: Famous Mortimer on August 23, 2019, 08:34:19 PM
A biography of baseballist Ted Williams:



This is just one page of hundreds with a similar level of scrawl in it (it does stop about a hundred pages before the end, indicating the reader got bored or died). I feel like they underlined a little too much for it to mean anything, but maybe I'm the weird one for not doing this.

There was a biography of Led Zeppelin in my local library where someone had gone through and tippexed out all the references to Jimmy Page being a rum 'un with the young lasses, drug use and so on, until about three-quarters of the way through, a future reader had scrawled "STOP DOING THIS YOU FUCKING IDIOT".

I also told a story on here once about a Jeremy Clarkson book with a bunch of offensive scribble on the front cover, but it appears, sans any evidence to the contrary, I was just remembering a bit from Robin Ince who talked about doing that to Clarkson books in charity shops. It still sort of feels like one of my memories, though.

Ted Williams was one of the greats - I wish I want on mobile so I could read the determined scrawls of a fellow baseball madman.

Bennett Brauer

Quote from: Ray Travez on August 23, 2019, 08:14:47 PM
Just found inside 'Chasing the Scream-the first and last days of the war on drugs', bought in Oxfam, North Yorkshire, a typed letter from Johann Hari to his friend, asking her to take a look and let him know what she thinks. It's got his London address and email on it and is dated 11/11/14.

Dearest Liz, it begins, Hello! As promised, here - at long last! - is a copy of my book. I'd be delighted to know, as a writer I massively admire, what you make of it.

I bet she took one look at the grammar in that last sentence and thought, nah.

pigamus

Quote from: Famous Mortimer on August 23, 2019, 08:34:19 PM
A biography of baseballist Ted Williams:



This is just one page of hundreds with a similar level of scrawl in it (it does stop about a hundred pages before the end, indicating the reader got bored or died). I feel like they underlined a little too much for it to mean anything, but maybe I'm the weird one for not doing this.

There was a biography of Led Zeppelin in my local library where someone had gone through and tippexed out all the references to Jimmy Page being a rum 'un with the young lasses, drug use and so on, until about three-quarters of the way through, a future reader had scrawled "STOP DOING THIS YOU FUCKING IDIOT".

I also told a story on here once about a Jeremy Clarkson book with a bunch of offensive scribble on the front cover, but it appears, sans any evidence to the contrary, I was just remembering a bit from Robin Ince who talked about doing that to Clarkson books in charity shops. It still sort of feels like one of my memories, though.

Don't read the first page of this thread whatever you do.

timebug

I got a used copy of a Dick Francis novel from a charity shop (I will read ANYTHING if I am in the mood!) and scrawled inside the front cover was the advice; 'Do not read this book! It is shit!!!' . I remember quite enjoying it, for what it was, but the original owner had obviously had a problem with it!