I can feel serendipity when I meet an unexpected note in a used book. Can you agree on it?

 

For example, when I received a copy of Karl Marx’s Das Kapital (Learned Edition) translated by Miyagawa Minoru, which my uncle loved to read when he was a university student, I felt thrilled to find a sentence written in Miyagawa Minoru’s handwriting on the inside cover of the book. It said, “Theory is the summary of practice and a guiding thread.”

 

I received an old hardcover copy of Yamaoka Shohachi’s Oda Nobunaga from an aged lady in Toyama Prefecture; I found a note saying, “The principal of the fountain in front of the Toyama Prefectural Government Office.”

 

And words continued as follows:

 

“Hot fish, water, red, blue, yellow, small fountain, blue water, red water, yellow water.”

I seriously wondered what secrets were hidden in them.

 

I’d forgotten the title, but I got excited when I found the words “I’m waiting for you at the back of the bookshelf” in an old book I borrowed and read from the school library as a university student.

 

Perhaps someone had written a message to someone in mind who had borrowed the book and was reading it in the library.

 

Or someone was poetically expressing the feelings of the book.

 

What kind of words have you ever come across written in an old book? It would be fun to collect those words from readers.

 

We hope you will enjoy Hokuroku this week as well.