I do enjoy finding marginalia in used booked and have started doing it myself. I know some people think marking up books is sacrilege, but this is only mass-market paperbacks.
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?
#432I do enjoy finding marginalia in used booked and have started doing it myself. I know some people think marking up books is sacrilege, but this is only mass-market paperbacks.
Re: What’s the strangest thing you ever found in a book?
#4331. I bought a 500 year-old book full of engravings that turned out to have pictures of UFOs in it 2. I became obsessed with Luna Park, an influential proto-Disneyland based in Coney Island 100+ years ago. It was so popular they ran light rail out there and hundreds of thousands of people went there every weekend until it burned down about a decade later. Took a book about it on vacation to Paris. Went to a random pla…
>2. I became obsessed with Luna Park, an influential proto-Disneyland based in Coney Island 100+ years ago. It was so popular they ran light rail out there and hundreds of thousands of people went there every weekend until it burned down about a decade later. Took a book about it on vacation to Paris. Went to a random place to read, and it had a little concourse named Luna Park. Inside it was a random coin-op machine…
If you think I, a mature, science-oriented man of substance, have any interest these "woo" books, you are 100% correct. Can't wait to read "Latitude 33".
Long ago I deep-dove into the Ken Webster but found it ultimately unsatisfying because it was unfalsifiable. But what a ride!
Re: What’s the strangest thing you ever found in a book?
#434Earlier quoted context omitted.
>2. I became obsessed with Luna Park, an influential proto-Disneyland based in Coney Island 100+ years ago. It was so popular they ran light rail out there and hundreds of thousands of people went there every weekend until it burned down about a decade later. Took a book about it on vacation to Paris. Went to a random place to read, and it had a little concourse named Luna Park. Inside it was a random coin-op machine…
If you think I, a mature, science-oriented man of substance, have any interest these "woo" books, you are 100% correct. Can't wait to read "Latitude 33". Long ago I deep-dove into the Ken Webster but found it ultimately unsatisfying because it was unfalsifiable. But what a ride!
P.S. I dined at Club 33 many times and once managed to rent it, Pirates of the Caribbean, and the Indiana Jones ride for a private party of about 50 people.
Re: What’s the strangest thing you ever found in a book?
#435Earlier quoted context omitted.
That's a far stretch to "tens of thousands of dollars." A valuable second-hand book can be $50.
It's true, if none of the books were rare, it might have only been thousands of dollars.
It easily could have been worth tens of dollars. Random books donated to Salvation Army aren't likely to be ones that people actually want.
Books by the Foot will sell you books for about $0.20 per book https://booksbythefoot.com/product/shelf-filler-bulk/
Re: What’s the strangest thing you ever found in a book?
#436Earlier quoted context omitted.
But a pallet of old academic books is unlikely to be composed of such books. It is probable that most of the books are worth less than the cost of shipping, and some of the books will have some value but not tremendous value. It is astonishing the number of wonderful, high quality books that can be bought on Abebooks for $1.
Did you look at the picture? https://i.imgur.com/0qiTKSQ.jpg Books I commonly buy secondhand that look roughly like those pictured are anywhere from $10–$200 each (depending on how common the particular book/edition is); we’re talking about pretty ordinary old academic books, nothing fancy or extremely rare. A pallet of books is ~500–1000 books (there are maybe 400 in the picture, but the blog author claims that is a…
That's selection bias because you are only looking at books that you actually wanted. An average book is worth much less than a book that someone actually wants.
Re: What’s the strangest thing you ever found in a book?
#437A butterfly. I opened a book (can't remember title) at a library over 15 years ago and a butterfly came out of the pages and landed on my shoulder.
This happened to me once, but it was a beetle and it flew out of a sealed package of spinach from the grocery store. They doubled my refund which was nice.
Re: What’s the strangest thing you ever found in a book?
#438Put a smile on my face.
Re: What’s the strangest thing you ever found in a book?
#439Earlier quoted context omitted.
Over his whole career as a professor, my father was so concerned about test sharing that he kept a file of every test he ever gave and was careful to never ask the same question twice.
Yeah. Tests are broken :-) Oral examination is way superior but you need a healthy “students to prof” ratio for that
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Re: What’s the strangest thing you ever found in a book?
#440Earlier quoted context omitted.
You really never know how people will respond to having their past thrust at them like this. Or how they'll respond to strange phone calls. I've bought many books over the years that had prior owner's names marked inside somewhere. On a few occasions I've bothered to try and identify/find the person in question. Once or twice I was successful, but I never bothered contacting them just to say "Hey, I bought this book…
When I was young, my collection of books ebbed and flowed based on how much spare cash I had. In lean times, I'd end up selling them, then eventually accumulate more. Once I got my career on a more consistent path, I collected books and ended up with a pretty diverse set, but in the back of my head I used the fact that I hadn't sold them as a barometer for my financial stability. Anyway, a couple of years ago, at the…
If anyone doxes me to tell me how lovely their third-hand copy of Chilton's 1984 Audi 4000 manual is.
Fair enough. But at the same time, I'd almost bet that somewhere, out there, is some person who sold their copy of the Chilton's 1984 Audi 4000 manual, but JUST LOVED THAT CAR, and loves all things Audi, and would be tickled to tears to meet another Audi owner/enthusiast, etc, yadda yadda. That connection would probably result in the two individuals becoming lifelong friends or something.
It's all so unpredictable. Heh.