Books with a little extra

After last week’s rather heavy column, I’m moving on to a cheerful topic. Or sort of a weird one, depending on your point of view.

If you’re a writer like me, chances are you’re a reader, too. I’ve loved books ever since I can remember. With my children grown and out of the house, I probably read one to two books per week now. I don’t hold on to them, though. Instead, I enjoy passing good ones along to family members and friends.

My mother, sister, niece, and I traded books for years. Now that Mom’s gone, and my sister and niece live far away, we don’t continue this tradition as often as I’d like. But I do trade books almost every month with one of my dearest friends, Cynthia. Of course, I don’t share “meh” books with her. Thankfully I rarely encounter those.

Unfortunately, sometimes Cynthia gets a little extra something with these books. See, I love to read at mealtimes, specifically breakfast and lunch. While I try to be careful, at least once every two weeks or so, I accidentally smoosh a bit of food on a page when I turn it. This is typically peanut butter, as shown in today’s photo, as I often eat peanut butter on toast for lunch.

Our columnist likes to share a little something extra when she passes a book along, such as this smudge of peanut butter. (Photo provided by Amy Shankland)

I’m trying to do better. In fact, I’ve been dropping major hints to my husband about book weights (Mother’s Day is around the corner … gotta help with those gift ideas when we can). These wonderful devices keep a book open in front of you on a table, so you don’t have to mess with it much while eating.

We’ll see if this prevents me from accidentally sharing food with people. I’m not the only one who leaves a little extra in a book, however. Since I typically get my books from Little Free Libraries, thrift stores, and family and friends like Cynthia, I’ve found the following items:

1. Bookmarks, obviously. As you can imagine, I love having many of these on hand. One of my favorite finds was a bookmark featuring a panda. So cute!
2. Business cards.
3. Coupons, which of course were expired.
4. Prayer cards (yay!)
5. Obituaries.
6. Highlighted sentences and paragraphs along with notes in the margin.
7. Author signatures.

All of this makes me wonder sometimes when I hold a used book in my hands about its journey. Who first bought it? What’s going on in the lives of everyone who has read it since? What are these people like? Was the book originally a gift? I like to see when the book was published and estimate how many people could possibly have read it over the years. Yes, I’m a word nerd through and through.

Cynthia hasn’t complained about the mysterious, multi-colored, dried food in the books I’ve passed along to her (thank you, my friend). I figure a real, true, “hold in your hand” book is pretty special these days. Why not give people a little mystery as well?

Amy Shankland is an empty-nester, writer, and fundraising professional living in Noblesville with her husband John and two dogs. You can reach her via email at amys@greenavenue.info.