As New Yorkers know, The Strand bookstore (family owned since 1927)  is a vast, sprawling expanse of new and used books, a place where you are liable to find nearly anything except—it often seems—the title you were looking for. As Wikipedia cheekily puts it: “The Strand advertises that it has ’18 Miles of Books’ and is well-known among New Yorkers for…the chaos on and around its shelves.”

In short, it’s the perfect place to find something unexpected, and so I was pleased to learn (from a former Melville House intern and current Strand employee) about the bookstore’s Tumblr which posts, among other things, the photographs, inscriptions, and odder items that have been found inside the thousands of used books.