133. “Dirty” Books

KIM ASKEW: Welcome to another Lost Ladies of Lit mini episode. I'm Kim Askew, here with my co-host Amy Helmes.

AMY HELMES: Hey, everyone. So Kim, I was scrolling dumb news stories on my phone earlier this month and I saw a headline that said something about "Here's why you should always put your used book in the freezer."

KIM: Is it because it's a scary book? Do you remember that episode of “Friends” with Joey? He hides Little Women in the freezer because it scares him because he used to have The Shining, which he lent to Rachel, and she was reading that. So she lent him Little Women and that scared him just as much of The Shining and he had to hide it in the freezer. 

AMY: I don't remember that at all. And that is hilarious. 

KIM: Little Women! 

AMY: Good throwback reference there. No, that is not the reason why they recommended always putting your used book in the freezer. The story advocated for doing so because it would kill any germs on them. And I thought to myself, "You know, if that's what's ultimately going to seal my fate, death by book cooties, so be it." I'm living on borrowed time at this point.

KIM: There are worse ways to go. And, uh, yeah, I mean, I like the idea that other people have held the library book.

AMY: Yeah. A super OCD person must have written that.

KIM: Yeah. 

AMY: But no, I'm still fine with my gross old dirty library books. I think we should talk about dirty books though. How many listeners clicked this episode because they thought it was gonna be like, dirty books? Like naughty books. 

KIM: Why did your mind go there?

AMY: Get your minds out of the gutters, listeners. This is literal dirty books. So let's do a quick rundown. Kim, you buy more new books than I do, so you might not have this phenomenon in your life, but I want to talk about the grossest things we've ever found in our library books 

KIM: Yeah. Or used books in general, because I buy a lot of used books. 

AMY: Two things definitely come to mind for me. They are not frequently… I don't say they pop up with frequency, but on a number of occasions I've gotten a library book where it's pretty recognizable that it's a smeared booger.

KIM: Oh yes. Oh my God, totally. That happens actually quite, quite a bit, I'd say. And 

AMY: it, is 

KIM: Come on, people get a Kleenex! 

AMY: No amount of putting it in the freezer is gonna solve that! 

KIM: No, totally. Yuck. 

AMY: It's there for the ages. 

KIM: Yeah. 

AMY: So that's gross. And then also I occasionally find silverfish smashed. You know, those little bugs? 

KIM: Oh yeah. Yes. Yeah, have you ever seen what looks like tears? Like someone read it and tears 

AMY: gosh. Wow. I would love that. 

KIM: Maybe it's snot and I just romanticized it.

AMY: Yeah. Tears. That sound that does, that sounds very romantic. .Um, have you ever found evidence of an actual bookworm, like a hole through the pages? I feel like I have. I think I have. Yeah. That's kind of neat because it's a hole like in the same exact spot

KIM: Yeah. It makes you think of an ancient library, with, you know, really old books in it, getting bookworm. 

AMY: Yeah, yeah, if you ever want to kill some time on the Internet though, you should google "weird things people have found in books." There's a couple articles that come up, like listicle kind of things. Um, there's one where someone found a smushed dried lizard. I mean, I think silverfish are bad, but can you imagine turning the page and there's like a pressed lizard. 

KIM: That might actually put me off of library books forever.

AMY: Yeah. I mean that would elicit a scream for sure. But I do have a similar story in my own house. Um, when the kids were young, we had a fish tank and it was on top of the bookshelf . And we had gotten a few new fish, one yellow, I don't, I can't remember what type they were. Um…

KIM: don't even remember you having a fish tank. 

AMY: We did for years. Yeah. Um, I can't remember the species of fish that they were, but we got one that was yellow named Jellybean and one that was orange named Cheeto. And within like a couple days of getting them Jellybean, the yellow one, was gone. My first thought was it must have jumped out. I looked everywhere for this fish on the floor, shelf, wherever. Couldn't find it. Did it get chopped in the filter? Is it dead somewhere behind the plants? Did Cheeto eat it? Could not find it, it was a mystery for the ages. I want to say at least four months have gone by, Jack is sitting by the bookshelf. He's got all the books on the floor surrounding him, and he's like, "Mom, I found a sardine! We don't serve sardines in our house, so I don't know why he thought it was a sardine. And I was like, "What?" He was looking at one of those Little Golden Books. Jellybean had jumped out clearly and had landed on the spine of the Little Golden Book. The fish got camouflaged on that binding. 

KIM: Oh my God. That explains everything. It wanted to read! 

AMY: Um okay, so those are the grossest things found in books. What about any cool things you've ever found in a book?

KIM: Yeah. I love finding different bookmarks people have left in there, or sometimes there's pressed flowers, things like that, that people have left. Um, Yeah. What about you? 

AMY: I remember, um, one of our early episodes that we did on Emily Eden, who wrote The Semi-detached Couple and The Semi Attached House. I got that book from the library with both of those novels in one book. And I found one of those like corporate name tag stickers. It said "Weston Hotel" on the top, and instead of having somebody's name on it, it said, "Happy couple, thank you" with a smiley face and exclamation point. And I felt like the reader, I imagine that she was sitting at some boring conference and instead of listening to whatever the seminar was, she was reading Emily Eden and she was just excited and happy that the couple, it was like a happy ending sort of scenario in those books. And I love that she just wrote "Happy couple. Thank you," and like stuck it in 

KIM: Aw, that's so cute.

AMY: When you find things like that, it's like books are a time capsule, you know? Stuff that you find from years and years ago.

KIM: And people's dedications at the beginning. I mean, those are always interesting too. Like, you know, when someone really thinks about why they gave someone a particular book, it can be really moving. I can't think of one off the top of my head, but it's always really sweet to see that.

AMY: Um, I saw, I think it was like a library. They, um, have a bulletin board where they just tack up all the stuff that people have left in their books. Like photos, you know, old bookmarks, old notes. 

KIM: Yeah. Because you think about the things you use. I often use photos or postcards. I want to see it every time I open it, this picture, whatever.

AMY: Yeah. Um, what about changing tacks here, your thoughts on dog earring pages or cracking the spines? 

KIM: Um, I don't think with library books that you should do that, honestly. I think you gotta treat them with respect, knowing that other people are going to be reading them. Though I do love when people underline things in used books and I see their notations.

AMY: Okay. See, I'm the opposite almost. I, well, I've gotten better about dog earing. I used to be a horrible dog-earer. 

KIM: You?!

AMY: Yes. 

KIM: I'm surprised. 

AMY: I'm surprised you even lend me your books anymore because I probably did it to your books. I think I try not to do it with your books because I know it's like your book, but my thought process was, none of these are gonna wind up being like the rare, I mean, I'm for the most part reading popular, bestselling books, so I'm like, this is not gonna be that one book that survives the apocalypse and has to be kept in this like rare, pressure sealed chamber for all of history. Like, there's a million copies of Harry Potter.

KIM: Yeah. You like your books lived in. 

AMY: Yes, exactly. And if I see a previously folded page, it almost gives me a connection to the person before that read it. But I do think, especially now, a lot of the books that we read for this podcast we have to get from libraries. And they're old, you know, they're not in print anymore and I realize how this is now a rare book, you know? And, it is a more precious thing. Like Dorothy Richardson's Dawn's Hand, like all of those books we're reading through The Pilgrimage books right now, and I am so careful with those books now. And the pages are crispy, so I know if I dogeared that, that triangle is falling off immediately. So I'm very careful now. So I'm starting to change my tune a little bit about the dog earing, but when it comes to the annotations, I find that so distracting. And I'm sure I put the stupidest notes in that only makes sense to me, but when you see other people's notes, they just look like idiots. 

KIM: I think it's okay in a used book, and I usually have looked through and I've seen, is it gonna annoy me or is it somebody that I feel like I'm gonna learn from their 

AMY: I always feel like it was probably a college student and they were in a class and that. Yeah. So that's okay. The worst though, was a recent one. I don't remember what book it was. It was something for this podcast I want to say, though. And somebody was going through and playing editor, thinking that they knew better.

KIM: Oh,

AMY: And correcting things and putting commas and like changing, and it was wrong. And it was like, "You smug old lady!" 

KIM: Yeah. 

AMY: I picture a smug old lady doing that. Busy body. I think the publisher knew what they were doing that they wouldn't leave 75 typos for you to find and correct. But anyway, 

KIM: the author's intention.

AMY: So we talked at the top of the episode about the fact that I wouldn't mind dying from library book germs. It's not a, you know, great fear of mine. But did you know that you could also get arsenic poisoning from old books?

KIM: Ooh, no. Tell me more.

AMY: So apparently there, yes, there's an emerald green pigment that was once used to color cloth book covers, primarily in the mid 1800s, and researchers have discovered these particular green books to be toxic. And many of them are still sitting in library stacks and used bookstores and people are none the wiser. But there's a new effort that's been launched by conservators at the Winterthur Museum and Library in Delaware. The Winterthur is kind of like Delaware's Huntington Library. Our version. 

KIM: If I ever go to Delaware, I'm going.

AMY: Yeah, it's beautiful, beautiful grounds and everything. Um, but yes, this new effort to, you know, find these books and track them down is called The Poison Book Project.

KIM: I love it. Can you imagine having that on your LinkedIn profile? I worked on The Poison Book Project. 

AMY: Yeah. You are kind of like the Poirot of poison books, right? You have to find them and warn people about, 

KIM: Yeah. Or not. 

AMY: For example, at the oldest library in America, which is the Library Company of Philadelphia, The Poison Book Project team found more than two dozen of these emerald green cloth color books.

KIM: Okay. First of all, this is like Knives Out Number Three, and it'll probably be better than Glass Onion, which I didn't think was that great, but it'll be the Poison Book Project. 

AMY: I didn't like Knives Out.

KIM: Uh, I had fun with it, but it was a little blockbustery for me. It was a little too pat. Anyway, but what's the risk with the books, actually? Can these books actually kill you? Like how much would it poison you? Is it just light poisoning or like, are you good?

AMY: No, no, no, no, it's not like... Kim is clutching her neck and like falling to the floor. 

KIM: I've read too many Agatha Christie novels.

AMY: Yes. No, it wouldn't be anything like that. But people who do come into contact with these books frequently, like researchers or librarians or book conservators, they could inhale small particles and it might make them feel sick or it could cause a skin irritation. Um, so this dye that was used in the book covers, it was developed in 1814 and it was used to color a whole range of products, not just books. Apparently the Victorians really liked this green color . It was like their Pantone Pick of the Year for many years running. Um, yeah, I'm sure you know the shade of green I'm talking about.. 

KIM: I know exactly what you're talking about.

AMY: And it's not just the emerald green books that are toxic. There are also some yellow and orangish books from around that timeframe that are also known to contain the toxic substance chromium. And there's also a lot of lead in book covers from that time period of assorted colors. So the dyes were applied to the cloth, like a coating, and that makes it a problem because it's easy for that then to crack and peel off, and that's where the danger lies. So even though these colors eventually fell out of fashion and the dyes stopped being used so predominantly, you know, there are old books lurking.

KIM: I have a lot of old books that's giving me a little bit of shivers.

AMY: Well, you can go to The Poison Book Project and they can give you more details.

KIM: I can find out. 

AMY: It's for the most part, it's not gonna be books necessarily that you have in your house unless you are really a collector of very, very vintagey old 

KIM: Okay. I don't have a lot. I have a few books from the 1800s, but not a lot. Okay, so, but basically the moral of today's mini is maybe just wash your hands after you read that old book. Just to be on the safe side. If you're not gonna wear gloves.

AMY: Yes. Yeah, maybe. Yeah. Uh, or just throw caution to the wind and say, "So be it. This is how I die." if the only yellowish green on your used book is an old booger, I guess you can be thankful it's not arsenic, at 

KIM: That's funny.

AMY: Um, but yeah, so speaking of discovering things in old books, we mentioned Pilgrimage earlier when I was talking about the dog ear. And I wanna update listeners a little bit on our Pilgrimage journey because we promised you guys that we were gonna be reading all 13 books. I have so far done, well, we've read book 10, uh, for the episode. Now, I've already read Book One, which is Pointed Roofs, and I read Book Two, which is Backwater. 

KIM: Oh my gosh. 

AMY: They are so freaking good.

KIM: I've got to read them. I ordered it and I didn't go to the library to pick it up. I've just been Yeah, 

AMY: You're behind. I'm lapping you. 

KIM: know this can't, I can't let this stand. 

AMY: I'm gonna get my mini pin. 

KIM: I can't let you get your pin first.

AMY: And here's what I want to say to viewers that might have listened to that Dorothy Richardson episode where you and I were talking about how difficult we found the writing. if you start from the beginning, the writing's not difficult at all.

KIM: Oh, great. 

AMY: It’s much easier to follow. I think part of our problem was we jumped in at Book 10. 

KIM: We didn't know what was happening. Yeah, 

AMY: Exactly. 

KIM: I didn't even know what genre I was reading when I first started reading it, because I didn't know anything about it. And I was like, "Is this sci-fi?"

AMY: Yeah. no. You're gonna feel this rush of, um, just revelation when you start Pointed Roofs, like, "Oh my gosh, I'm totally following everything now." And especially since we get further in her journey in Book 10, you're gonna love getting to see this character back when she's young and she's first starting her journey. And also, I wanted to say that in Backwater, um, there's a whole significant portion of the book is about her reading life. And she goes to a library and she kind of is a little bit embarrassed to ask the librarian where these books are, but she kind of wants to read books that wouldn't be looked on as suitable for a young woman like her. And, um, so the one author that fits that category is Ouida.

KIM: Oh yeah. 

AMY: she talks a lot about the experience of reading Ouida. Margaret Wolf Hungerford also comes up in her recollections. And then there's another lost lady, Rosa Nouchette Carey, um, who I don't know anything about, but Rosa Nouchette Carey almost sounds like one of the authors that would be more suitable for a young woman at that time. But she kind of wants to go read Ouida instead. 

KIM: We'll link to the Hungerford and Ouida episodes in our show notes.

AMY: Yeah. But Kim, chop, chop! 

KIM: I know! I better catch up. 

AMY: And once you read, you're not gonna be able to stop because each one I finished, I'm like, "Oh my gosh, I need to get the next one right now." So, yeah, not only are you gonna want to get the next books right away, but also I was jumping over to readingpilgrimage.com. That's the kind of center if you wanna follow along and be part of a group that's reading Pilgrimage, this is what Brad Bigelow from neglectedbooks.com, he kind of spearheaded. It's got great resources, it's got great discussions that you can...

KIM: Playlists.

AMY: It's got musical playlists because in the first couple books, music is kind of central to her inner life and I wish I would've thought that these playlists were there before I started reading Pointed Roofs because it would be really cool to read. And I want you to do this, Kim. Read Pointed Roofs and have that playlist ready so that when she gets to each song, I want you to play the song.

KIM: Okay, I will do it. 

AMY: I think that would really add to it. 

KIM: Yeah. Immersive experience.

AMY: So I am in it to win it as they say. I can't wait to finish the whole thing.

KIM: Okay. So, uh, yeah. I, I will. So, so, just circling back quickly to the topic of this episode, we want to know, listeners: what's the weirdest thing you've ever found in a book? You can email us or, uh, give us a shout out on social and let us know.

AMY: Yeah, we're all ears, and we hope you'll be all ears next week when we return to discuss another fascinating Lost Lady of Lit.

KIM: All right. Good. I love how you connected that. Our theme song was written and performed by Jennie Malone, and our logo was designed by Harriet Grant. Lost Ladies of Lit is produced by Amy Helmes and Kim Askew.