I found an old stamp at the thrift store today that allows for up to six lines of personlized text and I figured it might be a fun way to mark the books in my collection. I thrift most of my books and love finding writing or stamps in them, especially if it makes me laugh, so why not add some of my own?
So I turn to reddit for some inspiration. If you could stamp any text into your books, what funny/parctical/absurd/wicked text would you choose?
Before bookplates, there were book curses. Books were so valuable that the owners didn’t just mark them with their name, they put in a curse to deter thieves and people not returning borrowed books.
It goes back all the way to tablets from ancient Assyria and Babylonia where book thieves were held to be equally despicable to murderers and blasphemers.
He who breaks this tablet or puts it in water or rubs it until you cannot recognize it [and] cannot make it to be understood, may Ashur, Sin, Shamash, Adad and Ishtar, Bel, Nergal, Ishtar of Nineveh, Ishtar of Arbela, Ishtar of Bit Kidmurri, the gods of heaven and earth and the gods of Assyria, may all these curse him with a curse that cannot be relieved, terrible and merciless, as long as he lives, may they let his name, his seed, be carried off from the land, may they put his flesh in a dog’s mouth.
They got a little more concise during the middle ages.
Steal not this book my honest friend
For fear the gallows should be your end,
And when you die the Lord will say And where’s the book you stole away?I have my own book plate. Although I still want to rework the illustration sometime from a paper paste-in to something I can have carved as a stamp.
Ooh what about a mini review after you read it?
Or I would do a weird nonsensical inscription:
“To Baby Bruce on the eve of his first communion Love Grandma” in The Exorcist
“Congrats on your wedding to Edward! I hope this book will help you in your newly married life” in Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier
“To the new parents! Enjoy that baby stage while it lasts!” In We Need to Talk About Kevin
I will for sure write some of these in books I am about to donate to the thrift shop!
Break the spine, and I’ll break yours
I’d probably just put “Ex libris (my name)”
But I’m fond of one from a medieval manuscript where a scribe added something like “if a person steals this manuscript, may he die the death”
“Speak friend and enter”
(Your name) was here in 2023
Ceci n’est pas un livre.
Sorry my English. I have not practice 10 years :)
I remembered, then I read a science-fiction book about society which basis was military organization of lawyer. Author don’t have any understanding about working of lawyers and correct terminology. I have filled my comments all book fields. Now this book went hand in hand.
