If you're like me, you buy (or end up with) lots of secondhand books. One of the things that makes them so neat is that occasionally an odd bit of paper will flutter out - something someone pressed into service as a bookmark, or just wanted to keep in a book on a related topic. I've found so many enclosures over the years that last year I got all excited about starting a blog with scans of the enclosures and the titles of books they came from. But when I went through the books, these were the only ones I still had.

So if you find any cool book enclosures, send a pic. I never killed the blog 'cause I still think it's neat; just hadn't added anything.

Oh cool. Usually I leave them in the books when I sell them again.

The library called me once to let me know I left my BCP prescription in a book as a bookmarker.

I have a subscription card from around the time I was born in my current copy of GEB. Oh, and I once had a three-year-old check flutter out of a book from a relative. A book that I'd picked up and started reading several times before. Just never noticed that check. The worst part is my aunt thought I didn't like her gift!

I'll try to remember to take pix.

Yeah, mb, I too have a strange strong feeling that enclosures belong with their books. Rare-book dealers normally leave them intact, too.

The best thing I ever got with a used book was a homemade bookmark. It was a piece of cardboard covered in tin foil and it had a picture of a jellyfish glued onto it.

Haven't seen it in a while -- it's probably in the middle of some book I never finished reading.

The best things I've ever found in secondhand books are dedications written in them. The one in my copy of "Franny and Zooey" indicates that I must the fourth or fifth owner of it (at least): "P[lease forgive me]* for sending a used book. It's impossible to find Salinger books on the first hand market right now."

*I'm just guessing here; part of the dedication has been covered with a sticker depicting a polar bear in a Santa costume

Oh, Miko, one more thing we have in common! I collect antique books, and I love coming across clippings, four-leaf-clovers, etc. in them. It makes them even more unique. I have a partially written check for $45.00 from 1927, a very early Easter greetings card, and lots of newspaper clippings. I'll take pictures, and send them to you!

I never find cool things in books. I have found squashed dead flies, and blobs that I hope aren't boogers. I think I am one of the few people that write stuff in books I give to friends, 'cause no one ever does that for me, nor do I find any used ones with that.

I've gone around in all directions on inscriptions with my family (with whom I do the most book-giving and receiving).

I like inscriptions and, to me, they enhance the meaning and value of the book. Meanwhile, my brother has been a used book dealer on and off. He's against them, because they can reduce the resale value of a book. Of course, that doesn't matter if you don't care to re-sell the book.

Yes, the book reseller is the last person I have in mind when writing something in a book. When I give a book I have only the person I am giving it to in mind. I don't write in all the books I give, only in a select few.

I'd bet your brother would be for famous people putting inscriptions in books rather than nobodies like me. I'm sure a book inscribed by Mark Twain, or Anna Nicole Smith would be worth more than the average price for a given book.

Yeah, eek, my brother worked at this bookstore for a few years, which had a busy schedule of signings, so he always bought a first edition if he could and got the authors to sign it. Apparently just the signature is the highest value, though; the more the person adds to the inscription, the less general it becomes.

Let me be clear that I'm not defending my brother's viewpoint here -- he's got a fetishistic purism about books that only people who get into the dealing and collecting side really develop. The bookselling world is as arcane as, say, the horse-show world or the Airstream-trailer-restoring world; it has its own aesthetic and set of rules. We argue about the proper treatment of books all the time (or basically every Christmas, when I give him books I've inscribed. I love inscriptions!)

But I can't complain that he sometimes has given me author-signed books as a result of this obsession. The one I appreciated most was Don DeLillo's Underworld.

Neat, Miko. If things are slow on just the enclosures, I'd encourage the inclusion of marginalia and the names/dedications that always seem to be scrawled into the front covers of books.