Sunday, September 26, 2021

???

 I was reading along, nearing the end of the book. A weird-ish mystery, published in 1955 and then reissued in 1993 as part of a series of forgotten classics. I was about 30 pages from the end. Loose ends were being tied up and explanations given. I turned a page and found this:

I turned this page, hoping the story would pick up there where it had ended on the previous page, but nope. These blank pages were supposed to contain actual words important to the story. I muddled on, knowing I had missed some important bits. I turned the page again and was faced with more blank white space. After that, I flipped through the rest of the pages to see if there were more blanks. There weren't and I finished the book, but the experience would have been better if four of the final 30 pages had not been missing! I do not recall ever having come across this kind of thing before and I hope it's the last time! ๐Ÿคจ๐Ÿ˜•

13 comments:

Iris Flavia said...

LOL. I call this "the handicapped" - they usually end up in my hands!
Maybe this has changed now - all you can do is smile or laugh!
Or say "oh, shi# - again".

Shari Burke said...

Yes, not much to be done except laugh. Particularly since it was about 1am and I was eager to get to the end of the book! ๐Ÿ˜

Vicki said...

Wow! Of all the books I've read in my life I've never had that happen to me. It's plain weird!

Shari Burke said...

I've never seen such a thing before! I was shocked. Hopefully I won't be seeing this again!

Lowcarb team member said...

Goodness! That is very unusual.

All the best Jan

My name is Erika. said...

Nice to meet you Shari. This has to be so frustrating. Obviously there was some kind of printing error. I just read back on your JUly book posts and enjoyed them a lot.

Brenda said...

Wow… I just read a book with same-problem…ironic…

Shari Burke said...

It is unusual, Jan! I have never seen such a thing before and hope I don't again! ๐Ÿ™‚

Hi, Erika! Nice to meet you, too. ๐Ÿ‘‹ Thanks for stopping by and reading my bookish thoughts.

That is a weird coincidence, Brenda. Let's hope neither of us encounters this again. ๐Ÿ˜

Linda said...

My husband's great grandfather was a book buyer for a famous Pasadena bookstore. He seemed to have collected print errors and had authors sign the darn things. Strange hobby.

I would be frustrated too, especially at the end.

Shari Burke said...

That is a strange hobby! I wonder what the authors were thinking as they signed the faulty copies of their work!

Joy said...

It might be interesting to contact the publisher with some images and see what they say about it. Maybe people collect this sort of thing?

Shari Burke said...

I don't think the publisher is in business anymore, but I bet it would be interesting to a collector!

Joy said...

I think so too. Some people are collectors of odd or unusual books. I don't remember where I saw it but I once saw someone who collected unusual books and then made them into art.