Daily Archives: July 8, 2012

I am one of those people who would never dog ear the corner of a book to save my place. (No disrespect to all my four-footed pals intended.) I could blame it on nine years of nun schooling, but despite their never ending crusade regarding maiming or disfiguring books … it’s not the case. Books were always gifts in the family, and as such they were always treated with respect. Which is how my life long journey with bookmarks began.

Last week I was cleaning out the junk drawer in my office/library/bedroom. (Even though there is a perfectly good master bedroom in the house, I still prefer the cluttered room I’ve called my bedroom since I was fourteen.) Stuffed in a corner of the drawer was a box filled with bookmarks I’ve used to save my place in the tons of books I’ve read over the years.

Hold my place please … 

The one I really loved was this faux black leather vinyl bookmark …

I always used it with a plain brown kraft paper dust jacket for bus reading.

When those giant paperclips where in vogue, I used this red one as my bookmark.

For horror fiction this redeemed Target gift card served as the bookmark of choice.

When the Lord Of The Rings movie’s opened, a friend gave me this Frodo bookmark with a replica of the engraved ring … my precious … the tassel was a bit much though.

Then there was the time the LAST LINE – SMART BOOKMARK clips were in fashion. I think I had them in eight or nine different colors.

The clinging man was an obvious Keith Haring ripoff, but it really didn’t hold very well.

However, the Sun Goddess really had a strong grip on the page.

My favorite niece gave me the cute book work for my birthday. Cute, but not the bookmark you wanted to carry into a business office.

The THINKER actually did little to convince people you were reading deep, serious novels.

Then there was the never ending series of magnetic page clips. I actually made my own using Mlle. Renee. Unfortunately they were in great demand, and I gave them all away.

Back to the paper clip mark in a much smaller form.

And in dire need you could always use a movie ticket stub.

Thankfully, I was never a big saver of funeral prayer cards. So I never had any to use as bookmarks. My mother did save everyone she ever received and used them as bookmarks in her prayer book. That was my main source for reconstructing my family tree.

Now we have e-books and readers and all the bookmarks of yesteryear have been consigned to that cardboard box in the junk drawer under your computer. But don’t despair! For all who were born to use a dog eared page to mark their place, your reader will do it virtually for you.