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What are some things you’ve used as a bookmarker (besides real bookmarkers you have to buy). Please be as unconventional (but honest) as possible.

(And if you dog-ear your pages, shame on you, man. Hopefully you’ll get some ideas for bookmarks after reading this.)

― Vermont Girl (Vermont Girl), Tuesday, 20 April 2004 18:02 (twenty-one years ago)

I'll start. These are what I use most often:

Shopping receipts, train tickets, dish cloth, another book, chop stick, a sock.

― Vermont Girl (Vermont Girl), Tuesday, 20 April 2004 18:03 (twenty-one years ago)

Receipts, bar napkins, bus transfers, my finger/s, book cover, matchbook covers dangerously torn off to expose the matches beneath, dental floss, ubiquitous plastic from cigarette packages, bills I must but don't care to pay, and best of all friendly postcards.

― Michael White (Hereward), Tuesday, 20 April 2004 18:08 (twenty-one years ago)

The receipt from the library that says when the books are due, index cards with shopping lists, unfilled prescriptions (!), paper towels and kleenexes (unused), pens or pencils, magazines, magazine subscription cards.

― Rabin the Cat (Rabin the Cat), Tuesday, 20 April 2004 18:53 (twenty-one years ago)

Business cards, sticky notes, pillow, another book, bed sheet, pencil, any wire hanging by, stapler, calculator, stuff...

― Fred, Tuesday, 20 April 2004 19:05 (twenty-one years ago)

Concert and movie tickets. Multi-media sensations.

― otto, Tuesday, 20 April 2004 19:19 (twenty-one years ago)

about the same: shopping lists, receipts, movie tickets, notes, pictures, whatnot. I always save the bookmark in the book when I'm done, too. I was proud of happening to use a shopping list that started with 'Roasting Chicken, 4-5 lbs' when I read Edible Woman.

― derrick (derrick), Tuesday, 20 April 2004 19:52 (twenty-one years ago)

Oh- when my high school switched to a computer system and got rid of the old card catalogue, I saved a huge amount of the little cards. They make great notepaper, because they're a handy size and made of hardy card stock. Plus, each has a notation on the backside. The memoes and shopping lists I use are invariably on one of these cards, which make excellent bokmarks.

― derrick (derrick), Tuesday, 20 April 2004 19:56 (twenty-one years ago)

bus transfers, train tickets, library due date slips, atm receipts, post-its...

― laura, Tuesday, 20 April 2004 20:04 (twenty-one years ago)

bus tickets, airplane boarding cards, tags from clothing items.

― DV (dirtyvicar), Tuesday, 20 April 2004 20:15 (twenty-one years ago)

actual bookmarks from my shop. Periodically I have to gather them up from my house and bring them back into the shop. I also use boarding cards and try to keep them for a long time. My favourite is the one from when me and Bloke went to New Zealand a few years ago. It always makes me happy to discover it there in a book.

― accentmonkey (accentmonkey), Tuesday, 20 April 2004 21:41 (twenty-one years ago)

As a librarian, let me tell you (maybe you don't wanna know) there are a NUMBER of people who use Kleenex! We are not happy to discover it there in a book....

― pepektheassassin (pepektheassassin), Tuesday, 20 April 2004 23:25 (twenty-one years ago)

Husband shares that whilst doing research he has used the interlocking tower of books to mark his place in each. I work in youth services in a library, pepek. We see a great many cookies and crackers between the pages of books but I don't suppose those are bookmarks, strictly speaking. I'd forgotten how often I use clothing tags...

― Rabin the Cat (Rabin the Cat), Wednesday, 21 April 2004 05:59 (twenty-one years ago)

The usual: shop receipts, theatre tickets, cinema tickets, library receipts and cards, key cards, Amazon bookmarks, string, garden wire, headphone cable, bank cards, letter from the bank, post-it notes, pens, my mobile phone, notebooks, other books.

― SRH (Skrik), Wednesday, 21 April 2004 06:46 (twenty-one years ago)

Slightly off topic, but bizarre in a similar way, I once lost a book around my house and found I'd left it in the fridge.

So, on-topic, I'd say a pint of milk.

― Mikey G (Mikey G), Wednesday, 21 April 2004 07:41 (twenty-one years ago)

as a newbie I feel I have to have something worthwhile to say not just the same old .... so I'm delighted to be the first to mention postcards - the more obscure the better but usually left over from my holidays and unsent

― sandy mc (sandy mc), Wednesday, 21 April 2004 08:20 (twenty-one years ago)

Extra cards from the old Vertigo Comics collectible card set that I've had laying around for ages.

― Su (BoredInsomniac), Wednesday, 21 April 2004 10:06 (twenty-one years ago)

I used to use old train tickets for Metra. Obscure the date in the book, but leave the destination sticking out of the top. They'd glance over and think I'd already purchased a new ticket for that day. It got me many free rides, so those have to be my favorite.

― Jessa (Jessa), Wednesday, 21 April 2004 15:41 (twenty-one years ago)

The bands from bundles of cigars. Torn-out articles from magazines.

― Rob in the rain in Juarez, Wednesday, 21 April 2004 17:21 (twenty-one years ago)

oh geez, let's see: barrettes, a brush, lipstick tubes, bracelets (I wear chunky silver ones, so they're not easily lost in the pages), a bra one time while I was getting dressed, old letters, my travel buddha, letter opener, a quill (non inked at the time), an Altoids tin (my favorite one has Heat Miser on it), but I also have many lovely bookmarks floating around my apartment, my car and my desk... it's just that they go on a walkabout sometimes when I NEED a bookmark because death is a dog ear...

― yesabibliophile (yesabibliophile), Wednesday, 21 April 2004 18:59 (twenty-one years ago)

There's a catchy title. "Death is a Dog Ear" the crtically acclaimed new thriller by yesabibliophile.

― Michael White (Hereward), Wednesday, 21 April 2004 20:03 (twenty-one years ago)

am I the only one who uses the free paper bookmarks from bookstores for her bookmarks? lately I've felt very attached to them and now have a little, loving stack at the ready in the drawer of my nightstand: Powell's Books, Gotham Book Mart, Raven Books, Dog Ears Books (yes that really is the name of the place- up on the Leelanau Peninsula, but they give out bookmarks anyway), Snowbound Books, Dawn Treader Bookshop. that's it so far. it's a wee stack.

― slow learner (slow learner), Thursday, 22 April 2004 00:42 (twenty-one years ago)

Receipts, movie ticket stubs, lists of various things, napkins, pens, bills, letters, postcards, junk mail (those "Have You Seen Me" circulars with missing kids' pictures are particularly useful), bank statement, deposit slips, ATM receipts, construction paper. When I worked in a drycleaners I used large colored laundry tags - the blue "Heavy Starch" was my favorite. I utterly refuse to dog-ear the pages, and will use basically anything that won't bend the spine when the book is closed.

― Natalie (Penny Dreadful), Thursday, 22 April 2004 06:06 (twenty-one years ago)

This might be weird for a librarian, but I don't use bookmarks at all. Even when I have something to hand I forget to use it. Either I lay the book face down (bad bad I know!) or just shut it and find the place later. Matt is the total opposite, so maybe it's because there are bits of newspaper/receipts/Rizlas/wrappers etc strewn all over our floor having been pressed into bookmark service that I have gone off the concept...

― Archel (Archel), Thursday, 22 April 2004 09:37 (twenty-one years ago)

I dog-ear books!! I am also a librarian.

― jel, Thursday, 22 April 2004 09:44 (twenty-one years ago)

well, library assistant.

― jel, Thursday, 22 April 2004 09:48 (twenty-one years ago)

I only dog-ear library books haha.

― Archel (Archel), Thursday, 22 April 2004 09:52 (twenty-one years ago)

I don't dogear books, but I do often leave them lying open in a little tent shape. Of course I also often close them completely and then spend ages hunting for my place. It sometimes distresses me that in the hunt for my place in the book, I come across passages that I must have read only days (possibly even hours) before, of which I have no memory.

So it's better for me to mark the pages. At least then I don't remind myself of what a scatty reader I am.

― accentmonkey (accentmonkey), Thursday, 22 April 2004 10:54 (twenty-one years ago)

There's a catchy title. "Death is a Dog Ear" the crtically acclaimed new thriller by yesabibliophile.
-- Michael White (mwwhites...), April 21st, 2004.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
oooh, I'll make it an erotic thriller to keep the "bar none" crowd entertained ;)

― yesabibliophile (yesabibliophile), Thursday, 22 April 2004 12:49 (twenty-one years ago)

Has anyone ever brought a book home from the library and found a bookmark in it? I have, and I tend to take that as a BAD sign. (Person did not finish book. Will book fail to captivate me as well?) But if I buy a book at a used bookstore or at a yard sale, and find a train ticket or movie stub or [even better] a note marking a page, I take that as a GOOD sign (Book has lived an interesting life.) Inconsistent? Let's call it a paradox.

― Bridget Ahrens (bridgevt), Thursday, 22 April 2004 13:43 (twenty-one years ago)

yes so true. add to that: if someone gives you a book, and it has a bookmark in it, that's also good sign: they were so excited about the book that they had to read it first. my brother gave me Chester Brown's Louis Riel for my birthday and it had his train ticket stub in it! I said, hey, you read my present! but he was overpowered by its beauty.

― slow learner (slow learner), Thursday, 22 April 2004 14:30 (twenty-one years ago)

Since I buy way too many postcards, I'm always using them as bookmarks. And expired coupons work too.

― Carol Robinson (carrobin), Thursday, 22 April 2004 18:53 (twenty-one years ago)

bookmarks, never: i dog-ear and im proud of it, its the most practical solution, books arent precious items to be looked after, they're useful.

― jed_ (jed), Friday, 23 April 2004 01:40 (twenty-one years ago)

I work part time at my main campus library and I once checked in a book from the book drop that was full of carefully flattened mini Mr. Goodbar wrappers. They were all immaculately clean and poked out evenly, like book pages themselves.

― Claire (Claire Miccio), Friday, 23 April 2004 09:15 (twenty-one years ago)

mmmmm mr. goodbar...

― jed_ (jed), Friday, 23 April 2004 18:50 (twenty-one years ago)

one word: tissues

― Ele, Tuesday, 27 April 2004 12:27 (twenty-one years ago)

I'm currently using a card I bought for my friend's birthday back in September and failed to send (it's written and sealed in its envelope, complete with stamp - couldn't quite tell you why it never made it into the letterbox). Never mind, I'm sure she'll take solace in the fact that I've got more use out of it than she would have done.

― Cathryn (Cathryn), Tuesday, 27 April 2004 12:33 (twenty-one years ago)

I dont use bookmarks. I memorize the page. Its a good antidote against Ahlzeimer.

― Nelly Mc Causland (Geborwyn), Saturday, 1 May 2004 14:47 (twenty-one years ago)

I used to memorize the page number when I read one book at a time. Now it's mostly more than one book so I dont try it.

― Fred, Saturday, 1 May 2004 18:38 (twenty-one years ago)

socks!! thats so cool, i am going to buy luxury socks just for this

― prima fassy (mwah), Saturday, 1 May 2004 18:44 (twenty-one years ago)

A new high water mark for me - I've just used the child as a bookmark. The timer went off for the oven, nothing really at hand, "here, hold this...lose the page, you'll suffer..." (to which she just snarkily rolls her eyes-she can do snark with her eyes, she's 16 yrs old & after all, I'm her mother...)

― yesabibliophile (yesabibliophile), Sunday, 2 May 2004 17:01 (twenty-one years ago)

The usual: postcards (the free ones you pick up in bars near the toilets), business cards from shops, concert tickets, shopping lists, origami paper, etc. Sometimes even the flap of the book jacket. I have two woven bookmarks from Latvia that I use from time to time.

Museum brochures are apparently useful as well: I bought a used copy of Ian McEwan's Amsterdam in New York, and the previous owner had used a brochure from an exhibit at the British Museum as a bookmark. Amsterdam, New York, London: how international.

I say bring back the woven string embedded in the spine. Makes me feel posh on the train.

― zan, Monday, 3 May 2004 14:37 (twenty-one years ago)

Memorize the page number? That's crazy. Seriously. I've never heard of anyone doing that before.

― Vermont Girl (Vermont Girl), Tuesday, 4 May 2004 17:28 (twenty-one years ago)

What? everyone should memorise page numbers. again, though, it doesn't work if you double/triple/quadruple/etc book. I speak form bitter experience of reading the climax before actually getting halfway though a book due to mixing up page numbers

― Rowie, Thursday, 6 May 2004 07:30 (twenty-one years ago)

as a teenager I usually memorised the page no. but then way back then I didn't have a whole lot else to do.

― sandy mc (sandy mc), Thursday, 6 May 2004 07:55 (twenty-one years ago)

I, um, kinda make my own - part of a physical therapy thing I did for a while - lots of doodling on strips of paper that I then laminated. Kinda cheesy, but great stocking stuffers (and the grandparents think they're marvelous).

Other than those: chopsticks, money, credit cards, gum wrappers, candy wrappers, emory boards, "to do" lists, grocery lists, bills, envelopes, letters, tape that's been doubled-over on itself so it's not sticky, butter knives.

I used to memorize the page, but my mind is far too disfunctional for that these days.

― I'm Passing Open Windows (Ms Laura), Saturday, 8 May 2004 07:39 (twenty-one years ago)

I work with mentally ill adults, one of whom has a severe case of obsessive compulsive disorder. I, too, bookmark with bills, receipts, letters received, scraps of papers with phone numbers...and then I end up having panic attacks and have to collect all this ephemera and organize it and find OTHER ways to mark the page. My implied OCD, because it all ends up in piles of paper that surround the books.But here's the real implied OCD - Martha Stewart answer - tiny yellow post-it's. It is so weird and unnatural - but it works! And the glue lasts forever, so one can reuse...I've confessed far too much. (I'm also a student, so I usually have ten-fifteen books going at the same time)

― aimurchie, Saturday, 8 May 2004 22:38 (twenty-one years ago)

Last night I discovered that I'd marked my latest bed-time read with dental floss. It looked used. I'm disgusted with myself.

― I'm Passing Open Windows (Ms Laura), Monday, 10 May 2004 04:34 (twenty-one years ago)

Has anyone ever used one of those metal bookmarks that are sold in bookstores? I got one for Christmas once but it seems a bit heavy for the paperbacks I'm always reading. And I'd think it would be worse for the paper than dog-earing is.

― Carol Robinson (carrobin), Friday, 14 May 2004 22:00 (twenty-one years ago)

Does it really prevent Alzheimer's to make yourself memorize numbers? I always feel like it's WORSER for my brain to keep piling things into medium-term memory...

― Ann Sterzinger (Ann Sterzinger), Friday, 14 May 2004 22:26 (twenty-one years ago)

I collect bookmarks from bookstores, but I'll usually use whatever's handy as a bookmark. I love going through my old books and finding the things I used as a bookmark -- the random old bus transfers and advertising postcards from seven years back are great.

― Casuistry (Chris P), Friday, 14 May 2004 23:45 (twenty-one years ago)

better still: buying second-hand and finding what other people have used as a bookmark.

― cozen (Cozen), Saturday, 15 May 2004 22:50 (twenty-one years ago)

Yeah, that's pretty sweet too. Especially if it's, like, a shopping list or postcard.

― Casuistry (Chris P), Sunday, 16 May 2004 05:09 (twenty-one years ago)

Or a love letter. I did find a very sweet love note in a book in the shop once. It was short and sweet and more or less just said 'just to remind you that I love you,' and I had a sudden pang of sadness that the person who received it may have forgotten it was in the book and might be sad to have lost it.

Of course, even sadder is the idea that they might never notice and might not care.

― accentmonkey (accentmonkey), Sunday, 16 May 2004 12:37 (twenty-one years ago)

I found a dollar bill with a telephone number on it in a copy of Love in the Time of Cholera. Since then I've noticed John Cusack following me about.

― Mikey G (Mikey G), Monday, 17 May 2004 07:39 (twenty-one years ago)

The things that go on in your world. Honestly.

― accentmonkey (accentmonkey), Monday, 17 May 2004 11:11 (twenty-one years ago)

A vintage The Shamen flyer. A vintage Thee Temple of Pyschic Youth flyer.

― PJ Miller (PJ Miller), Monday, 17 May 2004 11:34 (twenty-one years ago)

Mikey G you actually watch such movies? I would never tell anyone that I've seen "serendipity".

― Fred (Fred), Monday, 17 May 2004 15:27 (twenty-one years ago)

Ha, I've watched it twice! Of course I only watch it for the two Nick Drake songs on the soundtrack. Hmmm.

― Mikey G (Mikey G), Tuesday, 18 May 2004 07:32 (twenty-one years ago)

A love note! That's so sweet! Sometimes I find old checkout receipts and I like to see what the other person read along w/this book. I've found grocery lists and names and phone numbers.

I do the usual including safety pins, toothpicks, grass or leaves. I used to have the ability to randomly open the book to the right page. But, sigh. My magic powers have gone.

I'm a newbie so if anyone wants to say hi!

bye

― PeanutDuck (PeanutDuck), Sunday, 23 May 2004 16:24 (twenty-one years ago)

Hi PeanutDuck.
Welcome to the twee world of I Love Books.
I can usually figure out the page I was on after a few minutes of skimming.

― accentmonkey (accentmonkey), Sunday, 23 May 2004 20:35 (twenty-one years ago)

i like to use a matchstick, though it's broken in a few larger hardbacks. better looking than it is functional. more often i just use a rotating cast of to-do lists on index cards

― David Elinsky (David Elinsky), Monday, 24 May 2004 00:11 (twenty-one years ago)

twelve years pass...

Two of my current reads I've got marked with a business card from a bank that had been residing in my wallet for over a year and a coupon for paper towels that I'm actually going to need to use later today.

The other is a hardcover with the dust jacket still attached, which I've been using to mark my place. This is always a precarious situation though, as they tend to get dislodged pretty easily.

My parents had given me a few tasteful "persian rug" style bookmarks for Christmas one year, but my daughter has taken them to decorate her dollhouse.

― how's life, Thursday, 7 July 2016 12:38 (nine years ago)

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