A Diversion – what’s in this tin?

It’s my bedside bookmark tin of course! I thought I’d take you on a tour of some of its contents. I’ll begin with my most treasured ones…

It’s all in the family

My late mum was a huge opera lover, and kept a lot of her ticket stubs. These are two contrasting ones I use as bookmarks. I’m glad she didn’t pay as much for the production that was ‘OK’ – she was a great annotater of ephemera. (You can see more of my ‘Ephemera’ posts here.)

Then there are the bookmarks my daughter has made or bought for me on school and college trips. We have Da Vinci’s Last Supper from Milan, a Bonnard cat from a French trip, a Shakespeare one from Stratford, and one she made at primary school for Mother’s Day.

And the best of the rest…

From the top left, going clockwise:

  • Ones I’ve bought: Vintage books from the Bodleian, a lenticular zombie girl, and cut off by the design sadly, a Stanley Spencer painting detail from a trip to Cookham.
  • Promotional book ones. I went to the launch of the Unbound book about Alan Garner (in tracksuit), and I bet there are people who would buy the Folio one for their deluxe edition of Pratchett’s ‘Mort’ from me, which was sent out with the marketing leaflet.
  • The Book Depository had a series of ten or so different bookmarks to colour in. I never managed to get a whole set, and then Amazon bought the Book Depository, so I stopped buying from them routinely.
  • Posh labels from clothes shopping. When they put lots of effort into their labels, it seems churlish to consign them to the recycling.
  • A miscellany of others, including on the left one from Barter Books in Alnwick, which I wrote about here.

Edited to add this one – how could I have forgotten my own publicity bookmarks from the times I’ve had a book stall at school fetes etc! One slipped into every book sold.

Do share some of yours!

26 thoughts on “A Diversion – what’s in this tin?

  1. kimbofo says:

    This is great! I need to put mine in a tin… they are scattered all over my flat and typically, like pens, when I need one I can’t find one! I do have dozens of whale bookmarks from my local indie… a freebie with every book I buy. I love them because they’re in the shape of a whale and seeing the tale stick out the end of a book makes me smile!

  2. Lisa Hill says:

    I’ve got one from the inaugural PM’s Lit Award, the year that Steven Conte won it for The Zookeeper’s War, and I’ve got a Dome centenary one from the SLV. A Words for a Bibliophile one from Readings, and one from Librairie Galignani in Paris. A beautiful hand embroidered one from Jennifer at Tasmanian Bibliophile At Large, and another from the Victorian Embroiderers Guild. But I don’t have a nice box to keep them in which is why I can’t find my Samuel Beckett and my James Joyce ones from Dublin…

    • AnnaBookBel says:

      If I visit a gallery and they have bookmarks of art I loved, I’ll always buy them. I’ve got loads more of them around the house that haven’t made it back to the tin yet.

  3. kaggsysbookishramblings says:

    Love your bookmarks, and what a good idea to have a tin – mine are scattered all over the place (and in books!) and I have some going back to long lost and forgotten bookshops up to more recent ones. I’ve amassed quite a lot from Blackwells recently as they seem to be my online shop of choice for new books. I’ve got embroidered ones from friends and home made ones, but more often than not seem to find myself using a bit of paper or a post-it note. I definitely need to gather them all in a container!!

    • AnnaBookBel says:

      I do most of my reading in bed, so it sits on the shelf of my bedside table. I too have loads of the Blackwell’s ones. Loads of my others are scattered in books too.

  4. Xanthe says:

    What a good idea to use tickets as book marks. And what exciting finds if other people come across them. I will do this in future. At the moment I just remember the page number , which is good but not fun.

    • AnnaBookBel says:

      I can never remember the page number I got to. Have to have a bookmark – although sometimes I fall asleep and drop the book!

  5. Calmgrove says:

    Ah, you’re a reader after my own heart, where the bookmarks you use have significance and end up representing the right thing in the right place (no folded-over corners for us, puh-leaze!). Memories of journeys, events, places and anything bookish, you have them all. 😊

    I’ve discussed this before of course (https://calmgrove.wordpress.com/tag/bookmarks/) but it may be soon time to introduce some of my favourites… In the meantime, I have four storage boxes (originally designed for card files) full of postcards, some historic or touristic, others promotional, but dipped into for bookmarks; but mostly they’re scattered around my desk or draws or, indeed, in books I never completed a decade or three ago…

    • AnnaBookBel says:

      You’ll notice I don’t use postcards. I always stuff my bookmark further into the book while I read, and I find postcards’ additional width and rigidity prevents me from holding paperbacks as I normally do, lightly flexed without bending the spine! As for turning down page corners – never!

      • Calmgrove says:

        I tend to tuck bookmarks just inside the back cover as I’m reading, but I agree they can make a paperback a little too stiff to manage comfortably. No problem with hardbacks though!

    • AnnaBookBel says:

      When they have a nice string on them too like my Weird Fish one, it’s just a waste to recycle them straight away. 😀

  6. Rebecca Foster says:

    All of my bookmarks (100+?) live in my bedside drawer, though not in a nice tin like yours. My two woven by my aunt on her loom are my prize ones, and I also really love leather and cloth ones. Most of mine are paper, accumulated from various libraries, bookshops and travels. I like trying to find a thematic link between the book and the bookmark I assign it where possible (e.g. all my medical reads get a Wellcome Book Prize bookmark). I did a whole post on my bookmark collection for Bookkaholic web magazine (now defunct) back in 2014 or so; I’ll have to see if I still have the text and can resurrect and update it!

    I enjoyed seeing your Barter Books post — 12 years ago! But it still seems much the same, except perhaps busier in general in Northumberland nowadays. Did you take books to resell that time?

    • AnnaBookBel says:

      I’d really like to go back to Northumberland, I loved it. I didn’t take any books to sell either, which I would do if I go back. I rarely pair bookmarks with books, but have a quick riffle through the tin and one will feel right.

      • Rebecca Foster says:

        There’s so much to do there; after just over a week we’d barely scratched the surface. Barter were very generous with their buyback offer. I was pleasantly surprised.

  7. BookerTalk says:

    What a smashing idea to have them all in one place – mine are spread about everywhere so when I want one, I just grab whatever is closest to hand. Which sometimes means they’re not a genuine bookmark, just something pressed into service like a till receipt. It’s annoying because I have a lovely collection of postcards picked up from art exhibitions and museums.

    I shall begin the hunt for a suitable tin this weekend. Of course, I shall need to eat the contents first ……

  8. Jennifer says:

    I have some that I have made (both patchwork and cross stitch) and an odd collection of old favourites, of gifted bookmarks (one lace one, some leather ones) and of postcards. And now I want a tin to keep them in 🙂 Thank you for sharing.

  9. Liz Dexter says:

    This is great! I have an old wooden Turkish Delight box for mine (once we got the current cats and they showed their enjoyment of chewing card …). I have Persephone bookmarks, cards that friends have sent me inside books they’ve sent, bookmarks from bookshops and some Book Depository ones, too – I’ve never managed to collect a full set and I remember my boss at the library trying to as he bought the second-hand books!

  10. Debbie Rodgers @Exurbanis says:

    Lovely cards, Annabel – and a lovely tin. Most of my bookmarks reside in an open wicker basket, but a tin would be so much nicer. Most everything comes in plastic rather than metal these days, so hunting one out may take some time.

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