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What’s the strangest thing you ever found in a book?

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Re: What’s the strangest thing you ever found in a book?

#71

Post by russellbeattie »

Not the strangest thing in the world, but I'm currently on a Mark Twain reading binge. He's absolutely amazing - if all you've read of his is Tom Sawyer or Huckleberry Finn, you need to read his non-fiction travelogues. His observations were prescient almost beyond belief, and his acerbic humor is laugh out loud funny.

Here's the strange bit: His book "Roughing It" is about his experience as a young man of moving to the West, spending a few years in Nevada and San Francisco, and then visiting The Kingdom of Hawaii where he tried surfing. In 1865.

> In one place we came upon a large company of naked natives, of both sexes and all ages, amusing themselves with the national pastime of surf-bathing. Each heathen would paddle three or four hundred yards out to sea, (taking a short board with him), then face the shore and wait for a particularly prodigious billow to come along; at the right moment he would fling his board upon its foamy crest and himself upon the board, and here he would come whizzing by like a bombshell! It did not seem that a lightning express train could shoot along at a more hair-lifting speed. I tried surf-bathing once, subsequently, but made a failure of it. I got the board placed right, and at the right moment, too; but missed the connection myself.—The board struck the shore in three quarters of a second, without any cargo, and I struck the bottom about the same time, with a couple of barrels of water in me. None but natives ever master the art of surf-bathing thoroughly.

Sam embraced and exaggerated his "Southern gentleman" Mark Twain persona later in life so much, the idea that earlier in life he was in Hawaii, hanging out and surfing is quite amusing to me. Victorian surfing?? Who knew?

Re: What’s the strangest thing you ever found in a book?

#73

Post by trebbble »

MerelyMortal wrote: post #54
jccalhoun wrote: post #37

In grad school, I checked a book out of the library and found an envelope for a congratulations card with something like $50 in it in various small bills. I felt bad because it seemed like it was a collection for a gift or something but there was no name on it. But I didn't feel so bad that I went to see if the library could tell me who checked the book out before me...

I doubt a librarian would tell you who checks out what books.

Not that long ago, that info was right on the card in the back or front of the book. Unless the card had just been replaced.

Re: What’s the strangest thing you ever found in a book?

#74

Post by acomjean »

jnovek wrote: post #58
daviddaviddavid wrote: post #40

I realize it is not the same as finding a friend, but I recently found five crisp $20 bills in a used logic text book at an Amvets thrift store. I opened the book because it was written by Irving Copi, who wrote my undergrad logic text. I was paranoid it was counterfeit, but it was very much real money. To make things better, the first $20 I spent was to get a pizza and the employee said a mistake happened at the piz…

I want this story to continue, and for each of the five twenties that you spend, some increasingly elaborate and unlikely good thing happens.

I went through a couple years where I was finding cash kind of a lot. Not life changing amounts, but something.

At work in the secure area when locking up I found a 10 inside the door. I didn't know what to do with it so I tacked it on the bulletin board by the door. Really obvious. Nobody took it for 2 weeks (which is kind of remarkable), so I took it back to buy lunch.

I found a twenty in the snow on the street in cambridge. But it was new snow and easy to follow the tracks. It led to the security guard at the University. He was really thankfully to have it back.

Later that spring I found a crumpled $50 blowing down the street. It was near the faculty club. "Tumble Money" my partner said. Also 50s aren't really common. I kept 30 and donated 20 to charity.

But lamentably my good fortune in the finding of cash has come to an end. Perhaps the rise of the credit card changed my fortunes.

Re: What’s the strangest thing you ever found in a book?

#75

Post by massysett »

daviddaviddavid wrote: post #40

I realize it is not the same as finding a friend, but I recently found five crisp $20 bills in a used logic text book at an Amvets thrift store. I opened the book because it was written by Irving Copi, who wrote my undergrad logic text. I was paranoid it was counterfeit, but it was very much real money. To make things better, the first $20 I spent was to get a pizza and the employee said a mistake happened at the piz…

I was with my girlfriend at a restaurant whose decor was filled with a bunch of old furniture and knickknacks. Next to our table was a stack of books. My girlfriend opened the top one and inside the cover was a bunch of money - maybe $200 in twenties?

Over dinner we talked about what to do about this, and ultimately she added $20 more to the stash and left it in the book.

That restaurant is now gone.

Re: What’s the strangest thing you ever found in a book?

#77

Post by a9h74j »

daviddaviddavid wrote: post #40

I realize it is not the same as finding a friend, but I recently found five crisp $20 bills in a used logic text book at an Amvets thrift store. I opened the book because it was written by Irving Copi, who wrote my undergrad logic text. I was paranoid it was counterfeit, but it was very much real money. To make things better, the first $20 I spent was to get a pizza and the employee said a mistake happened at the piz…

> the first $20 I spent was to get a pizza

Story would be even better if you had traded the pizza for 10 bitcoin.

Re: What’s the strangest thing you ever found in a book?

#78

Post by ortusdux »

I once took a critical thinking course and bought the textbook 2nd hand from the college bookstore. A week or two in, I noticed half of a sentence written in the margin. As the professor started teaching the topic from that page, he rhetorically asked a question, did not get an answer, and then answered himself with the sentence from the book. I filliped ahead and found that the entire book was annotated with all of his answers, anecdotes, and various other helpful notes. There was even a table that accurately listed his wardrobe choices! The notes were in several different handwritings, and the book had been resold over a dozen times, so that professor must have been teaching the same class the exact same way for a decade or more. I quickly became a star pupil as I always had an answer ready. I added a few notes along the way and then sold it back to the bookstore at the end of the year. I really wanted to keep it for posterity, but It just seemed wrong to take it out of circulation.
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