Viola Tricolor Memento

Browse: The World in Bookshops
Edited by Henry Hitchings


Reading in this collection "Bookshop Time" by Ali Smith, I was struck by this passage about what gets inserted and preserved between the pages of books

We leave ourselves in our books via this seeming detritus: cigarette cards with pictures of trees or wildlife; receipts for the chemist; opera or concert or theatre tickets; rail or tram or bus tickets from all the decades; photographs of places and long-gone dogs and cats and holidays; once even a photo of someone's Cortina. Now when I donate books to the shop I have a flick through to make sure that anything tucked into them isn't something I might mind losing.

A Cortina btw is a type of car.

A few days later I find in a copy of Bashō a delicate book marker fashioned as a mark of affection and love. On the one side is a pressed heart's ease patiently arranged and composed with parts from other plants to form a miniature herbarium specimen. On the other side is an inscription dated Valentine's Day 1987. The card is laminated and so protected. A perfect long lasting gift.

And so for day 2387
26.06.2013