Ticket· 2000s
He found his own college ticket in a Little Free Library book
By the Editors · As reported by The Village Green, 20 April 2026
FoundMaplewood, New Jersey, United States
Tucked inside Mao II by Don DeLillo
Reunited — it went back to its owner or their family.
As a comparative literature student at the University of Iowa, Graham Goetz bought Don DeLillo’s Mao II and never got round to reading it. Years later, living in Maplewood, New Jersey, he took a copy of the same novel from a Little Free Library on a street corner. That evening a $7 ticket stub from a February 2001 university performance slipped out with his name printed on it: it was his own long-lost copy. He told the story in The New York Times’ Metropolitan Diary.
This is our summary of a find reported in the press. For the full story, photographs and any updates, read the original report in The Village Green.