Day 3 and Day 4 September 27, 2014 and September 28, 2014

Posted on 05 October 2014 | Updated on 08 October 2014 | Added in Murphy's Loft Revisited

I started this week off by educating myself. In noting the condition of the books I wanted to make sure I was using the correct terms for parts of the book. I found this great site, http://www.antcolbks.com/Glossary.html and now I know what a fore edge is. I also came across books that had edges with uneven pages. I refer to these as ghetto pages but as it turns out it's called a deckle edge and some people prefer it. Armed with my knew knowledge I sat down and got ready to work.

Days 3 and 4 were supervised by Lovey Boy (pictured left). He actually proved to be a terrible supervisor that took way too many naps and encouraged procrastination by demanding belly rubs. At the end of days 3 and 4 we are sitting at 13 bins containing 701 cataloged books. We have 7 bins of books without ISBNs to log and 10 more bins that have not been touched.

Autographs- I actually did better than I thought I would in this department. I came across three books that were autographed. The first was a book about a disabled Japanese American woman named Fumi. The book is autographed by Fumi and from the looks of it she holds a pen in her mouth. The second autograph comes from a book written by a school principal who shook things up in the Philadelphia school district in the early 90's. These two seem like inspiring books but I was impressed with the last one. A political book titled, Playing President: My Close Encounters with Nixon, Carter, Bush I, Reagan, and Clinton and How They Did Not Prepare Me for George W. Bush, by Robert Scheer. One of this author's notable achievements is an article he wrote for Playboy in which he interviewed Jimmy Carter he admitted to have lusted in his heart.

Pet Peeve- This is actually something that was a weird thing last week. The seals from personal libraries. I'm coming across more and more of them and one guy in particular, MMB, likes to write little book critiques on the inside cover. While I'm sure his opinions are valid and though provoking, I am also sure they devalue the book. I'm also annoyed by the volume of magazines, in particular we have a large amount of Nintendo Power magazines. I think I remember getting one Nintendo Power magazine as a kid because they were expensive so when I was going through and noticed they all had the same kid's name on the address label my first thought was, "What a spoiled brat." Jealous much? Well, yes.. yes I am. So I decided to Google the guy because I was convinced he couldn't have amounted to much in life, what with playing all those video games AND being a spoiled brat. I found him on Linkdn and as it turns out he has an MBA and does Marketing for a successful app company. I guess those video games paid off after all. My new pet peeve that is going to continue to get worse is library card pockets on the inside covers of books. At first I was amused by them as they reminded me of my childhood and going to the library. But I'm sure they devalue the book.

Weird Things- I'm pretty sure I came across my first haunted book! I listen to Pandora Radio when I am doing this whole book business. As I was sorting the song, "Brown Eyed Girl" by Van Morrison came on. I act like i hate the song when Al sings it to me because I have blue eyes but I really do like the song. As I am thinking about this little fun fact I open a book to check it for any marks and there right in front of me a person had made notes in the back cover like they were doing genetics homework. It was a sequence and probability of brown eyes and blue eyes! Of course I took a picture because I was so freaked out. I half expected to see some apparition in it. I flipped though the book again to make sure I didn't miss anything and that's when it got even weirder! There was this folded up piece of paper in it with all kinds of tidbits of advice to live your life by. My initial theory is that the person who owned this book was a fortune for fortune cookie writer. Just a theory.

Author Pictures- Many books will have a picture of the author on the back cover or on the inside jacket flap. One thing I started to notice is that some of the pictures are absolutely ridiculous. The authors who elect to be photographed with their animals are my favorite. The guy with the dog just has this look on his face like, "Yeah, she's MY bitch. Hate on haters." The guy with the cat is clearly thinking, "My precious." While the cat is obviously trying to get away, realizing the level of weirdness that's going on here. I imagine that man ended up with bloody forearms promptly after this picture was taken.

My Favorite Things- I came across some great things while going through the books on Day 3 and Day 4. I found my favorite book thus far and it's titled, "A Collection of Hairstyles So Bad You Can't Look Away". The book has no words, just pictures so I went cover to cover in about two minutes. I have here the best or worst I guess you would say, pages in the book. I've also come across a lot of cookbooks. I mean... A LOT.. of cookbooks. I came across one and I think it could have belonged to me in another life. The first thing I noticed is that there was a magazine or something inside the book. It turned out to be an "Advertising Supplement to the Evening Bulletin" from Philadelphia, PA dated November 18th, 1965 and it was titled, "How to make 46 Great Drinks the way the experts do" complete with mixing tips, secrets of the experts, and how to improve your favorite drinks! At first I thought it was just a small little magazine but as I opened it I quickly realized it was a poster! The other great thing about this book was that apparently, the only recipes that were used in the book were the desserts! The entire book looked completely untouched and spotless EXCEPT the dessert section. Not only were there all kinds of oil stains but the owner put notes next to recipes! Letting future readers know which recipes to "Not Bother" with or which ones could be improved with some changes.