43 Times Readers Left Their Bookmarks In Books They Gave Away

The story of r/ForgottenBookmarks is quite an interesting one. Created in 2008 by the Redditor u/unmoderated, it was an extension of the blog they started in 2007. "I was the manager at my family's used and rare bookshop and always thought these finds were interesting," u/unmoderated tells Bored Panda.

"I shared a few with friends and decided to just make a simple Blogspot so I wouldn't have to send out emails," they add. Thus, the Forgotten Bookmarks blog was born. Throughout the years, that it was active, the Redditor posted many personal, funny, heartbreaking, and weird things they've found in the old books at their family's store.

Although the blog and other social media accounts for Forgotten Bookmarks aren't active anymore, in its heyday, it was quite popular. "The blog and the Twitter account ended up getting some traction and led to two books published by Penguin in 2011 and 2012," the creator tells us.

Indeed, you can even buy the two books today. The first one is a collection of similar things to this list, and it's titled Forgotten Bookmarks: A Bookseller's Collection of Odd Things Lost Between The Pages. The second one is a book of recipes: Handwritten Recipes: A Bookseller's Collection of Curious and Wonderful Recipes Forgotten Between the Pages. 

As far as the subreddit goes, u/unmoderated doesn't have much time to partake in making sure things are running smoothly there. "I wish I could take some of the credit for the subreddit, but I'm probably the worst moderator on Reddit," they quip. "I created it many years back to pair with my blog forgottenbookmarks.com and never really spent much time on it."

Life got in the way for the Redditor to continue posting on the blog and its social media accounts, too. "I took over the bookstore in 2016, and between that and having a young child and then the 2020 stuff, I have more or less stepped away," they clarify. Well, the good news is that r/ForgottenBookmarks seems to be doing quite well on its own, having over 76k members and several new posts daily.

When we ask u/unmoderated whether forgotten bookmarks sometimes might get put between the book pages on purpose, they're doubtful. "I always go with the assumption that the bookmarks were forgotten. The only items I think might have been left on purpose were leaves and flowers to be pressed," the Redditor says.

There was one curious object that u/unmoderated still remembers finding in a book to this day. "It was not a forgotten bookmark, but I did find a 'baby book,' one of those little decorative keepsakes where you fill in a baby's height and weight, when they walked for the first time, etc. It was all filled out until the baby was two years old or so, [with] lots of photos inside."

"Keep in mind, the birth date listed was from the 1950s or so, had the full name – but all of my internet sleuthing skills and even a ton of help from Twitter weren't enough to find the person or any family," the Redditor adds.

If you thought that the end for print books was nigh and nobody reads them anymore, think again! 2024 saw an increase in sales: 782.7 million books were sold in 2024, compared to 778.3 million in 2023. While the peak of print book sales was in 2021 with 839.7 million units sold, recent sale numbers are still better than those before the pandemic.

The demand for print books is growing so much that Barnes & Noble even opened 60 stores all across the U.S. in 2024. That's their biggest number of new bookstores since 2007. And don't worry, corporation haters, independent bookstores are actually thriving as well. According to the American Booksellers Association, there were 2,433 indie bookstores in 2024, with 190 projected to open in the next two years.

The president of the ABA says that there are many different reasons people are opening up new bookstores. Some are opposing bans, others are championing diversity, while others are just looking for a career change after the pandemic. "Some are opening to give back to their community. And some still just love books," she told Associated Press.

What do you use to mark your place in a book, Pandas? A receipt, a metro card, a sticky note, a leaf, a nacho chip? Or, perhaps, an actual bookmark designed for that very purpose? Whatever it is, at least it's a sign that people are still reading print books! Share the strangest things you've found in vintage books, and while you're here, check out the books that are so strange you have to read them to believe they're real!

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