Love Letters, Lost Photos & a Bit of Weed: Life Behind the Counter in a Secondhand Bookstore

In a secondhand bookstore, every book has lived another life. Some carry secrets. Others, small echoes of the people who held them close.

At The Book Bucket, our staff and stores have spent decades watching these hidden histories slip quietly out from between the pages. Here are just some of the items we’ve found inside the books that make their way to us — each one a whisper of a moment, a person, a story.

Found Between the Pages

• Love Letters
  Folded in neat triangles or scrawled in impulsive ink, we’ve found everything from childhood notes passed between desks — “Do you like me? Circle yes or no” — to heartfelt adult confessions, never sent. Then there are the break up letters, bitter letters, blunt letters: all based on love and new chapters. One found last week simply read: 'that's it, you're so dumped'. 

• Photographs
  There are the photos that were never meant to be seen by anyone else (clearly mid or post-coital). Most have been shared and kept for a reason. Sun-damaged portraits from the early 1900s. Local places, some not so familiar. Colour-saturated snapshots from a 1982 beach trip. Baby photos, family gatherings, vintage school pics. One image, curled with age, showed a young couple holding hands on a bridge that no longer exists. Another? A selfie from a disposable camera, barely developed — a face frozen mid-laugh.  Some are sentimental. A few are private. All of them are personal. Most of these finds hang on the walls of our stores and staff will tell you, '...its a very special moment to see them spotted by their owner or another loved one, especially if the people in them have passed and there are messages on the back'.

• Stacks of Currency
  Often slipped between pages intentionally — not always forgotten. Sometimes it's a single note as a bookmark. Sometimes it’s an envelope filled with high-denomination bills no longer in circulation, wrapped with a rubber band and the faint scent of old paper. Once, in the spine of a mystery novel, we found a wad of crisp 1971 notes. A customer later told us their grandfather never trusted banks and always hid his savings “where no one would think to look — unless they read.” 

• Bookmarks
  Embroidered fabric with frayed ribbon edges. Laminated school photos marked with “To Nana, 1996.” A bookmark we printed ourselves back in 1993 — a little nostalgic thrill when those reappear. Some are hand-drawn, some are pressed flowers in wax paper, some are clearly handmade gifts. Each one a token of reading past, and the love that made it memorable.

• Airline Tickets
  Torn boarding passes from Qantas flights in the early 2000s through to Ansett and TAA airline stubs. One from a 1977 BOAC route to London. Most are tucked inside thrillers or travel guides — evidence of books bought at the gate, cracked open in the air, and tucked away in the bag for meaningful movement across places. The journeys don’t end with the last page.

• Shopping Lists & Recipes
  Usually tucked inside cookbooks, but sometimes found in fiction — lists scrawled on the back of envelopes, old bank slips, or torn corner scraps. Once we found a list that included "lemons, coriander, condensed milk" alongside a hand-written recipe titled Mum’s Fridge Tart (1974). Another time, someone had added margin notes like, “Try coconut cream instead – trust me.” These are stories, too — of kitchens, families, and shared meals. Localised recipes tips are the best finds, with explicit instructions on how to substitute local produce for generic ingredients. Staff say '...from roasting and grinding Bunya nut (aka Bonyi Bonyi nut) and substituting for flour; through to a lemon myrtle cheesecake recipe... our own cookbooks and menus keep growing in ways we could never imagine'

• Postcards
  Some sent and signed with love. Others blank, held onto for the image, the memory, the intention to write. One was from Rome, dated 1968: “Thought of you when I saw this sculpture — it’s just as dramatic as you.” Another was tucked inside a philosophy book, never written on, but featuring a black-and-white photo of an empty railway station. Mysterious. Perfect.

• Bills
  Electricity, gas, mobile phone — paper bills we used to take to the bank, news agency or post office. The kind you tucked into a book as a bookmark, or perhaps used the book as a bill or paper holder after paying and forgot all about. Some have coffee rings. One had a note scribbled on the back: “Don’t forget to pick up Nan’s medicine!” They’re relics of a not-so-distant everyday life that’s fast disappearing.

• Tissues
  Unused of course. Paper-thin and often embossed with patterns— a surprisingly common bookmark. Some use a full leaf, others tear off neat rectangular strips. They’re gentle on fragile pages, thin and soft against the spine. A quiet choice for the sentimental reader.

• Pressed Flowers
  Daisies, eucalyptus leaves, entire lavender stems. Some dry and brittle, others carefully preserved. Once we found a red rose between the pages of a first-edition poetry book, dated 1937. The scent had faded, but the message was still there: someone had loved this book deeply.

• A Bit of Weed
  Tucked inside a Bob Dylan lyrics collection, sealed in wax paper. Was it an offering? A stash? A moment of inspiration captured in time? We’ll never know. But it made us smile — and ponder what kind of nights that book had seen.
  
  Which probably makes you wonder... 
  
  

  What Happens to the Found Things?

  We check every book before it goes on our shelves. If we find something personal or identifiable, we remove it. But we do try to reunite items with their owners when we can. Sometimes its a quick callback if we know who traded it in or if there's identifying information on it. Otherwise, we pin notes, bookmarks, and photos to our store boards in hope. Afterall, our bookstores are all about strengthening local community connections and our key customers come back, inter-generationally. 

  Often, it works. One woman found a picture of her father, aged ten, dressed for a school play. Another recognised a family holiday photo that had somehow made its way back to her via a vintage wildlife guide. These moments remind us that trading books is about more than reading — it’s about memory, mystery, and human connection.
  
  And the illegal or monetary finds... after a good laugh, they find their way to the local police station counter instead.