As an avid reader, I have quite the collection of bookmarks, including a beautiful Charles Rennie Macintosh metal one, like this. But I usually just use whatever piece of paper I have handy, like a drink receipt from a poolside cocktail in Mexico, or a train ticket. I think the only thing I consistently do in terms of bookmarks is with my travel guides, where I try to keep all my paper mementos from a vacation within the pages of my guidebook. I have books bursting on Prague, Ireland, New Orleans, and more.
I’ve never used money, but that’s just me. Turns out some people have, or used other valuable items. What’s your favorite bookmark, or the best bookmark you ever found in a used book?
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11 thoughts on “What do you use as a bookmark?”
…uh, I use pieces of toliet paper or Kleenex (unused!). It's just an easy, cheap thing to get.
I'll use about anything, as long as it's flat enough, though I try not to use something that I either need to find again or don't want to leave in public, such as bills or letters, because I am constantly losing my bookmarks.
By the way, the bookmark in the photo cracked me up. It's so pretty and frou-frou, but then you read the words, and there's some serious attitude there. It looks like something the people at Subversive Cross Stitch would provide a pattern for.
I use everything.
I have bookmarks that I've bought or that have been given to me. I've used baseball cards, foreign money (either obsolete or worthless or pretty), hotel room keys that I forgot to turn back in, junk mail, discarded packaging, scraps of paper–just about anything that will fit between pages.
Maybe my favorite bits of scrap to use as bookmarks are BART tickets, so when I'm back home in the SF Bay Area, I'll put an extra nickel on my BART ticket so that the machine doesn't suck it in and keep it when the amount on the ticket is used up. I like how they are printed on one side so I can make it face the page where I left off, and they are the perfect size.
It's been four years since I've been back there, so I'll be terribly disappointed next time if they've changed how the tickets work and I can't get some new bookmarks.
Like you, I use anything that's handy. One of the books I'm reading now has a brochure for a yoga place I was thinking of trying out. Maybe I keep it in there to encourage me to get out.
But my favorite bookmarks over the last few years have been Post It notes, generally ones with notes scribbled on them. What I love about them is that the sticky part isn't so sticky that it tears the page of the book, but it's just sticky enough that if the book is dropped or the pages flip open accidentally, the bookmark doesn't fall out. Plus, there's the added benefit of the pretty colors.
How terrible am I? I dogear. I don't even use bookmarks any more.
I used to have a collection of 52 Garfield bookmarks. On occasion, they still pop up around the house.
As a librarian, I find peculiar bookmarks frequently. My favorite? A used Band-Aid.
Bloody.
Ew!
I have a few regulars in rotation (including some from the lost & found at the library!) + a lot of scrap paper scribbled with notes like, "DAD'S BIRTHDAY!!!" or "CALL DENTIST!!!"
I have used just about everything! Comments made me think about the bookmarks the library used to give away when I was little. They were just about playing card sized and had a curved cut in them that would slip over the page. They were awfully pretty – florals and paisleys and other designs.
These days I usually use the store receipt or the library receipt, because once I get a book I usually read it as soon as I get home!
PS – your bookmark reminds me of a cross-stitch my stepmother made for me years ago. A pretty little floral design picture that I hung in the bathroom. It said "Who Invited All These Tacky People?"
Each time I buy a keeper, I use whatever ticket is handy. Travel, ballet, symphony, concert, movie, etc. Later, when I need a fix and grab the keeper off the shelf, the tickets still snugly resting in there reminding me even more of everything in life that went on around that book.
I collect free paper bookmarks — I have a multiple dozens from the SDCC a few years back. They live in a few places around the house: the bathroom, my closet, the library. There's almost always something at hand to use, in a pinch (we live in whatever is the opposite of the paperless office).
Of course, for normal paperbacks, I just bend a corner. Though for my paperback at work I usually keep a lunch receipt around to use as a bookmark when it's at rest, and a protect-the-spine-from-sweat-and-dirt sleeve when I'm walking and reading.
My daughter makes me bookmarks. Right now I am using a 'fairy' made out of construction paper and a heart sticker. It's perfect because it is nice and grippy.
My mother however, keeps buying me fancy ones that are wood or metal and don't stay in the book. What a pain in the butt! Who even made them? Have they never used a bookmark before?
i use an american dollar bill [I'm australian] or a charlie and lola bookmark from the publishers [i work in a bookstore]
other than that, im flexible – a train ticket, a receipt, anything flat!