Forgotten Bookmarks: A Bookseller's Collection of Odd Things Lost Between the Pages

By day, Michael Popek works in his family’s used bookstore. By night, he’s the voyeuristic force behind the websites ForgottenBookmarks and HandwrittenRecipes, where he shares the weird, wonderful objects he has found among the stacks at his store.

Handwritten Recipes is a treasury of Michael’s most fascinating found recipes. You’ll find classic Americana like pies and casseroles alongside ethnic mainstays such as Italian cookies, springerle, and German dumplings. Some are perfectly clear and complete, while others leave crucial elements—like cooking times and ingredient measurements—to the reader’s imagination. You can venture to try any recipe, or just enjoy Popek’s findings as a time capsule from kitchens of generations gone by.

It's happened to all of us: we're reading a book, something interrupts us, and we grab the closest thing at hand to mark our spot. It could be a train ticket, a letter, an advertisement, a photograph, or a four-leaf clover. Eventually the book finds its way into the world-a library, a flea market, other people's bookshelves, or to a used bookstore. But what becomes of those forgotten bookmarks? What stories could they tell?

By day, Michael Popek works in his family's used bookstore. By night, he's the voyeuristic force behind www.forgottenbookmarks.com, where he shares the weird objects he has found among the stacks at his store.

Forgotten Bookmarks is a scrapbook of Popek's most interesting finds. Sure, there are actual bookmarks, but there are also pictures and ticket stubs, old recipes and notes, valentines, unsent letters, four-leaf clovers, and various sordid, heartbreaking, and bizarre keepsakes. Together this collection of lost treasures offers a glimpse into other readers' lives that they never intended for us to see.