My Every Book Has A Story Project has come to a close (for now). I ended up with 22 spectacular books from all over the place and a lot of yard sales. I’m extremely happy with the results and even more I truly enjoyed collecting all of these books. The last book I put in, Zack’s Alligator, is one of the first books I ever got as a child. Inside I have where I signed my name when I was five and I wrote how this project has affected me. I’m anxious to see if they are as exciting for my friend who is getting them. If my friend loves them as much as I do then it’s going to become a life project. As I journey around the world I’ll send books. Not only will my friends library get filled but it will be with my life.
Update: He loved them and I will continue as I said. It will be “The Thick Postcard Library”
This is my first book from a tumblr friend, Bridget, and it is a beauty. If you’ve been following for a while you should already know about my Every Book Has A Story Project, where I’ve been collecting books from all over to help one of my best friends who is putting a library in his house. I’ve been going to yard sales and antique book stores and I’ve been documenting my finds, not only on here but in each book. All of the books I’ve been collecting have had these unique journeys all to get to one place, this library.
Sometimes, I find the stories behind the books even more interesting than the books themselves. This particular one came from an abandoned ballet studio from the 1700s that was converted into a school in the 20th century. Bridget recently made a trip back to the William Brattle House and met an old man that was still working there since the time she was a little girl. He remembered her and let her back in to the studio where she used to play alone while her dad was upstairs working. The old man, Steven, learned that it was her birthday soon and as a present gave her some old art books that he had locked in the studio closet in 1975. The books had been there since before Bridget was born, before her parents ever met. They sat through so much history, untouched. Steven told her that she could have all the art books for all the missed birthdays. She could only see taking five with her back home to New York and this just so happens to be one of them.
This story is a lot more beautiful the way she wrote it and it spans the entire first page. I just figured that this post was long enough for our Tumblr mentality. Looking at this project so far I am thrilled with the response and the responses. Reading other people’s entries is just as exciting as finding a good book myself. I hope this isn’t boring for you because it is so rewarding for me that I felt the need to spend an hour typing up a post as to preserve the memory of how happy I am with the way this is going. Thank you for your contribution, Bridget, it’s perfect.
Really good day for my EBHAS project.
This is the normal amount I write in each one, it’s just a small bit of history or why I chose a particular book but it usually ends up meaning a lot. Finding the stories behind the books has been so rewarding thus far, even more so when I read other people’s descriptions.
I’m up to 17 books now and one more is currently on it’s way from New York!
Bust.
Today I stopped by a yard sale to hopefully add some more books to the EBHAS project and it was a bust. The only books the person had out were a Holy Bible and a couple of those cheesy Walmart romance novels, you know the ones that look like this: 
It just made complete sense to me that those were the only two types of books she had. On a side note, while I was searching romance novels I came across this one:
which I most certainly would have bought had it been at the yard sale.
Still going strong, my friend Mallorie just brought me a new wave of books that she went around collecting. Some of the stories behind them are really inspiring to read. Some of them are over 100 years old and have traveled far.
This is the collection thus far:
I would love some new additions. I’ll keep watching out for yard sales and I’ll probably hit the flea market this weekend.
I got my first books for my Every Book has a Story Project!
I couldn’t get the guy to write in it and he wasn’t very knowledgeable but the books look awesome. I used one to write about the project and the other to write about where it came from. Tom Sawyer is just extra. Got them all for two dollars!
The first story can be found on the inside of the middle book and is as follows:
I came from an old man that didn’t know much about me. He had his charm and a nice amount of teeth protruding from his mouth. I belonged to the man’s wife and he said you could tell how old I was since she had us for a long time. There used to be a lot more of me but now it’s just down to me and my baby brother, Book 1. (They are part of a series and one is book 1 and the other is book 7.) I was believed to have come from Nova Scotia, Canada but I was conceived in the U.S. The old man didn’t know what he was giving away. 2.00 for 3 books is incredulous! At least ‘For Baby Feet’ is still with me. On to our next adventure.
I want to do something like that with all of them so I’ll keep looking!
Every Book Has A Story.
This is a project I’ve been working on for one of my best friends. He is putting a library in his house when he can afford it and doesn’t have enough books to fill it yet. Lately I’ve been collecting books from random yard sales and I’ll ask the person selling it to write from the book’s perspective of where it’s been. I think it will be cool to see all the different journeys that each of these books have made to end up in the same place. If the person doesn’t want to do it I’ll usually write what they seemed like and where it came from on the inside myself. This is a shot in the dark here but if you’d be interesting in contributing a book, please send me a message, or if you like the idea, reblog it for me in case someone else might like to mail me one. I don’t expect much from the internet so I’ll continue with what I’m doing but I’ll be sharing my progress with you guys if I get any interesting finds. My deadline is by Christmas this year.
