When I was a kid I used to look for four-leaf clovers. Not sure if I ever found one. If I did, I might have stuck it between the pages of a book. That’s what you did with things like that, in times long ago.
Book: A Nation and Not a Rabble: The Irish Revolution 1913–23 by Diarmaid Ferriter
Leo doesn’t seem too happy in this self-portrait. But then he was getting old and that’s not for the weak of heart.
Book: Leonardo: The Artist and the Man by Serge Bramly
Painted leather. I’m a little ashamed to admit that pulling this bookmark out of my collection I not only had no recollection of who gave it to me, but that I wasn’t even sure where Costa Rica was. Central or South America? I wasn’t sure. So of course I had to look it up.
Book: Encyclopedia Britannica (1973 edition)
Neat promotional bookmark. Obviously I never planted the seeds, and nearly ten years after Panacea was published I don’t know how likely they would be to grow. Not that I use basil for much anyway.
Book: Megathreats: Ten Dangerous Trends That Imperil Our Future, and How to Survive Them by Nouriel Roubini
I remember the Co-Op Bookstore in the Stone Road Mall. But I think it closed in the 1980s. Making this a very old bookmark indeed. Back in the days when Canadian bookmarks, even the ones that are just slips of paper with some printing on them, had to be “Made in [the] U.S.A.”
I’m not sure if the Stone Road location was associated with the University of Guelph’s Co-Op Bookstore, which is still in operation on campus. I don’t know why they would have had a storefront in the mall, but it’s possible.
Book: Last Best Hope: America in Crisis and Renewal by George Packer
Something from the gift shop at the Canadian Museum of Civilization in Ottawa. So it must be more than ten years old, since the name was officially changed to the Canadian Museum of History in 2013. Which means this bookmark is itself now a bit of history. It currently resides in the Alex Good Museum of Bookmarks.
It must have been a gift to me because I’m sure I’ve never been to the place. Perhaps someday I’ll go. The picture is of a Tsimshian mask sculpture that apparently has a twin (only with eyeholes) in a museum in France.
Book: The Story of Civilization I: Our Oriental Heritage by Will Durant
I had an earlier Bookmarked! post featuring some of the library card art of Darryl Berger (“making art from obscure objects”). These three bookmarks are another set, being three different portraits of Napoleon painted on library cards of books about Napoleon. Love the concept and the execution. Great stuff!
Book: Napoleon: A Life by Adam Zamoyski
I haven’t read the book this bookmark is advertising, though it sounds like it might be interesting. The editor was actually a neighbour of mine for a few years.
Book: Medieval Europe by Chris Wickham
I think this may be the oak leaf cluster design, which is a military decoration. It has the three acorns. But then again it might be something else. I don’t remember where I got it. It looks nice.
Book: Another America: The Story of Liberia and the Former Slaves Who Ruled It by James Ciment
An interesting, not to mention risky, business idea: Longhouse Books was launched in 1972 as a bookstore that only sold Canadian titles. These were the heady days of peak Canadian cultural nationalism though and it did well for a while. The original owners sold it in 1989, and after relocating to the Bloor Street address you see printed on this bookmark it closed six years later. I lived on Bloor West for a while in the early ’90s but don’t remember ever visiting, though I must have dropped in at some point.
Book: Evelyn Waugh: A Life Revisited by Philip Eade
Alex Good 