Lucky Finds

Some books and their secrets

Since I moved to California almost seven years ago, I’ve been very lucky to accidentally acquire something extra with the purchase of a book or two. Here are some examples.

On a top shelf in the wonderful The Iliad Bookshop in North Hollywood, I spied two copies of a book called Hurrell Style. I had to use their ladder to get up there, and on inspection one of the books was half the price because it had annotations on some of the pages. It was only when I turned to this particular page (above) that I realised that next to George Hurrell’s portrait of Bette Davis was a signature by the Hollywood Icon herself!

Next up… as a teenager I remember reading a book from my local library called Aboard a Flying Saucer by Truman Bethurum. A rather fantastical tale by one of the early contactees about his meetings with Aura Rhanes, a female space ship captain. I had the urge to read it again for some weird reason, so I tracked down two copies on eBay. The description of each was minimal, so I took a chance on the one pictured below, and I’m so glad I did because aside from the jacket, it was in pristine condition, and when I opened the book, out fell a leaflet… It’s True!

Not only did it have this authentic leaflet from the 1950s, but to my absolute joy, I discovered the book had been signed by the author himself!

The next hidden treasure was discovered in a book at a charity shop in Toluca Lake. It was called The Native Americans: An Illustrated History. This was actually a book I decided not to buy, but before doing so, I found nicely pressed between two of the pages, this rather recognisable leaf! We had a laugh when I asked the manager if this was included in the price. She’d had no idea it was in there when it had been donated.