Happy Easter

Item:  Photograph

Book: Unknown

Wanted: Copy Editor

...will pay in beads.

Item: Flyer

Your Invited

Book: 9 Inner Jewels by Kellyna Kaleolani Campbell

Description:

9 Inner Jewels offers a unique and powerful approach to finding peace in a world of uncertainty and change. It teaches the reader how to use color and light to connect self and soul. This book walks the reader through ways of creating daily meditations that are customized for each day. It shows people how everything that happens to them during the day can support their inner peace, personal growth, and spiritual integration. 9 Inner Jewels suggests ways for people to find inner peace, attain healthy relationships, and live in prosperity through the practice of meditation.

Funny Book of the Day



Sometimes you *can* judge a book by its cover

Book: Winning Table Tennis: Skills, Drills, and Strategies 

Description:

Five-time U.S. singles and 11-time doubles champion Dan Seemiller, possibly the best American table tennis player ever, shares his secrets for top-level play in Winning Table Tennis: Skills, Drills, and Strategies.

Readers will learn the best table tennis techniques, strategies, and conditioning methods for success. The authors provide beginning through advanced players with practical tips that make a difference.

The book features 29 drills for developing better shot-making skills. Seemiller's creative shot and grip innovations will give players an edge. The 124 photos and illustrations make it easy for players to learn the proper techniques and sharpen skills. Plus, the book offers drill variations designed to hone the skills of advanced players and professionals.

Highlights include - various service techniques:

Underspin hook serve, part 1



Underspin hook serve, part 2


And strength training tips:

Parallel squat, part 1

Parallel squat, part 2

Stiff-legged deadlift

Not now chief, I'm in the zone:



MUSCLE MILK!!!

Stream of Consciousness

Item: Note

Obverse

Reverse

Book: Don't Make Me Think: A Common Sense Approach to Web Usability, 2nd Edition by Steve Krug

Description:

Five years and more than 100,000 copies after it was first published, it's hard to imagine anyone working in Web design who hasn't read Steve Krug's "instant classic" on Web usability, but people are still discovering it every day. In this second edition, Steve adds three new chapters in the same style as the original: wry and entertaining, yet loaded with insights and practical advice for novice and veteran alike. Don't be surprised if it completely changes the way you think about Web design.

So Money

Item: Currency

This is all the money I have ever found in books, excluding one single US dollar.

India

Brazil

Saudi Arabia

Mexico

Books: Various

Funny Book of the Day

Book: The Official Preppy Handbook by Lisa Birnbach

Amazon Review:

This book was a spot-on parody when it came out in 1980, but also a quite accurate and even useful "field guide" to the North American prepster. Almost 25 years later, it still holds up as humor, and also as a great guide to the prep look and lifestyle. And best of all, it may even be timely once again: An article in the New York Times a few days ago suggested that teen fashion trends are turning away from overexposure and punk and back toward plaid, chinos, polo shirts (with turned up collars, natch), even repp ties! Everything comes around a second time, so Lisa Birnbach call your office. It may be time for an updated edition for today's rising BMOCs.

Party Time

Item: Recipe

2oz Bacardi Dragon Berry Rum
Splash each:
Pom juice
Simple syrup
Champagne

Book: I Hope They Serve Beer In Hell (movie tie-in): with 16 page photo insert by Tucker Max

From Wikipedia:

Tucker Max is an American blogger and writer. He chronicles his drunken and sexual encounters in the form of short stories on his website TuckerMax.com, which has received millions of visitors since Max launched it for a bet in 2002, making him an Internet celebrity.
Max's book I Hope They Serve Beer in Hell became a New York Times #1 bestseller and has made the Best Seller List each year from 2006 to 2011.

The Survivalist

Item: Handwritten note/Manifesto/Bug-out plans

Obverse:


Full Document



"3 Sphere Model"

"3 Sphere Model"

- Sphere of Consensus

- Sphere of Discourse

- Sphere (?) of Denial



"Issues of Contention"

"Issues of Contention"

- How effective is gov't?

- Who profits from illegal drugs

- Are disasters profitable?  Planned?

- "Lone gunmen" or vast criminal conspiracy?

- Die off?

- Economic crisis: near the bottom, prolonged depression, social breakdown?



Threat Level Color Scheme

Threat Level
- green = ok, do nothing
- yellow = get mom & PJ, back Mtn only
- red = hell, get mom & PJ, ∅ leave prop.
- at&t text e-mail
- ∅ b/4 church stay home
- ∅ by noon-code red
- handgun 45
- Ruger 22 LR

Reverse:

Book: Patriots: Surviving the Coming Collapse: A Novel of the Turbulent Near Future (Expanded and Updated 33 Chapter Edition) by James Wesley Rawles

From the Back Cover:

America faces a full-scale socioeconomic collapse in the near future. The stock market plummets, hyperinflation cripples commerce and the mounting crisis passes the tipping point. Practically overnight, the fragile chains of supply and high-technology infrastructure fall, and wholesale rioting and looting grip every major city

As hordes of refugees and looters pour out of the cities, a small group of friends living in the Midwest desperately tries to make their way to a safe-haven ranch in northern Idaho. The journey requires all their skill and training since communication, commerce, transportation and law enforcement have all disappeared. Once at the ranch, the group fends off vicious attacks from outsiders and then looks to join other groups that are trying to restore true Constitutional law to the country.

Patriots is a thrilling narrative depicting fictional characters using authentic survivalist techniques to endure the collapse of the American civilization. Reading this compelling, fast-paced novel could one day mean the difference between life and death.

Interesting Book of the Day

Book: Flickan Som Lekte Med Elden - Girl Who Played with Fire - Swedish Language) by Stieg Larsson

Wikipedia background:

The Girl Who Played with Fire (Swedish: Flickan som lekte med elden) is the second novel in the best-selling "Millennium series" by Swedish writer Stieg Larsson. It was published posthumously in Swedish in 2006 and in English in January 2009.

The book features many of the characters that appeared in The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, among them the title character, Lisbeth Salander, a social misfit, and Mikael Blomkvist, an investigative journalist and publisher of Millennium magazine.

Widely seen as a critical success, The Girl Who Played with Fire was also (according to The Bookseller magazine) the first and only translated novel to be number one in the UK hardback chart.

Nancy Grace

Item: Bookmark


With the Casey Anthony saga winding down, it seems Nancy Grace has picked up some extra work as a bookmark model/watchdog. As you can see, will keep a watchful eye over where you left off in your latest paranormal romance paperback.

Anyone who dares to touch your werewolf/vampire novel without your permission will be on the receiving end of a snap rush to judgement and a cacophony of calls for incarceration.

Book: Stolen: A Novel (Women of the Otherworld) by Kelley Armstrong.

Amazon review:

Elena Michaels, the only known female werewolf, cavorts on a more fully cultivated supernatural playing field in this sure-footed follow-up to Bitten (2001). While investigating a suspicious notice advertising information for sale about werewolves, Elena meets witches Paige and Ruth Winterbourne-and, to her misfortune, a team of mortal and supernatural commandos who abduct Elena and Ruth to a remote underground bunker in the wilds of Maine. There Ty Winsloe, "billionaire and computer geek extraordinaire," is collecting a menagerie representing all the supernatural species that coexist anonymously with humanity (vampires, werewolves, witches, etc.).

Radio Flyer

Item: Photograph

They see me rollin'...they hatin'.



Book: The Cultural Creatives: How 50 Million People Are Changing the World by Paul H. Ray and Sherry Ruth Anderson.

Amazon.com Review: Cultural Creative is a term coined by Ray and Anderson to describe people whose values embrace a curiosity and concern for the world, its ecosystem, and its peoples; an awareness of and activism for peace and social justice; and an openness to self-actualization through spirituality, psychotherapy, and holistic practices. Cultural Creatives do not just take the money and run; they don't want to defund the National Endowment for the Arts; and they do want women to get a fairer shake--not only in the United States, but around the globe.

World Travelers

Item: Photograph


These ladies seem pretty excited. Their guide, however, has seen it all before.


Book: Wonderful Life: The Burgess Shale and the Nature of History by Stephen Jay Gould

Amazon.com Review:
The Burgess Shale of British Columbia "is the most precious and important of all fossil localities," writes Stephen Jay Gould. These 600-million-year-old rocks preserve the soft parts of a collection of animals unlike any other. Just how unlike is the subject of Gould's book.

The Muse; or the Inspiration of the Eagle's Eye

When this bookmark fell out of its temporary paged prison; and the intense, piercing stare of this noble eagle met mine, I knew that I must share it with as many people as possible. And with that impulse, this blog began to form in my mind's eye.

Item: Bookmark

Frankly, there is just a lot happening on this small sliver of laminated paper stock. Where to begin? Let's see...the previously mentioned eagle is featured prominently, while the young reader (ostensibly the true subject of the piece) seems to be a mere afterthought, cut-and-pasted in a thought-bubble near the top of the frame.

One might be led to believe that the featured young lady is simply an eagle/yucca plant/mountain-biking/desert/American-Southwest aficionado. I, however, am getting a distinct impression that the whole scene might be a mescaline induced hallucination, perhaps experienced by the eagle himself.

Adding to the prominence of our eagle friend, we cannot escape his gaze as it follows us to the reverse...intently monitoring the conspicuously empty "List of Books to Read". Lest we not forget...Reading IS Fundamental.

Also as meta-feature of the item, the small chew marks suggest the young reader is a pet-lover, or perhaps a repressed nail-biter.

Book: Zen of Seeing: Seeing/Drawing as Meditation by Frederick Franck

From the Inside Flap:
A Dutch artist offers his concept of seeing and drawing as a discipline by which the world may be rediscovered, a way of experiencing Zen.

Origins

This blog will chronicle a wide range of items that I find in used books. As of this post, I have been a used bookseller for about two years and have thus examined tens of thousands of books. In hindsight, I wish I had kept some of the past items I have stumbled across and since discarded. They ranged from the mundane (hundreds of common bookmarks and grocery lists), humorous (items seemingly unrelated to the genre of book), poignant (hand written letters dealing with heavy loss), valuable (one dollar), to the truly bizarre (the polaroid of a completely nude african-american gentleman posing quite nonchalantly - complete with a pair of pink-laced rollerskates). But what's gone is gone (perhaps for the best) and I can only pledge from now on to share the most interesting with you here.

The next post will highlight my inspiration for this blog.

Enjoy.