It’s relatively common, I find, when opening a newly purchased second-hand book for the first time, for something to fall from its pages. Most likely this will be a branded bookmark or printed stocklisting paper from the dealer who sold it. But it’s not unusual to find something more interesting, something belonging to the book’s previous owner.

Apparently the singer Nick Cave donated 2,000 books to an Oxfam in Hove this summer, and new owners of his paperbacks discovered old plane tickets and Post-it notes tucked inside. We serial readers of actual physical books are constantly in need of bookmarks and will grab at anything to hand to use as one. And once inserted, such improvised bookmarks can remain there for years, or even decades, until a new reader comes along to rediscover them.

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