When Jay over at Bittbox posted his "Anatomy Of A Really Old Book" I admired it like many others and thought to myself "Someday, when I have time, I'm going to try something like that." Well, just the other day I was contacted by Lost and Taken reader Sean Tejaratchi about some old book textures he had scanned a while ago while working at an old book store (imagine that, old books coming from old book stores...) and my quest for good book textures had been fulfilled. Sean has graciously decided to share his treasure trove of textures with everyone who visits Lost and Taken. Here is what he has to say about them:

I believe it's closed now, but in 2000, I briefly worked in a cavernous, decrepit bookstore called Amitin's, in downtown St. Louis. Boxes upon boxes upon boxes of used books, teetering in the aisles, everything in various states of disrepair and sometimes decomposition. In rare cases where books had to be discarded, Larry Amitin, the endearingly cranky owner, would remove striking book covers and sell them for a few bucks each. When Christmas rolled around, I made scans of these covers, burning them onto CDs for a few graphic designer friends. These textures and patterns come in handy in the past, and I'm sure others will find something useful as well.

I just wanted to take a minute and thank Sean on behalf of all of the readers of Lost and Taken, it's always good to meet designers who outwardly help other designers through giving away free resources. That's what this website is all about after all. Sean's paper zine can be found here and here.

Here is a preview of the 15 textures included in the link at the bottom of the post: