People who think librarians are boring might want to take a look at this:

A 300-year-old book that appears to be bound in human skin has been found in northern England, police said Saturday.

The macabre discovery was made on a central street in Leeds, and officers said the ledger may have been dumped following a burglary.

Detectives were trying to trace its rightful owner and believe it may have been taken from a dwelling in the area.

Much of the text is in French, and it was not uncommon around the time of the French Revolution for books to be covered in human skin.

The practice, known as anthropodermic bibliopegy, was sometimes used in the 18th and 19th centuries when accounts of murder trials were bound in the killer's skin.

The rare book collection at the Langdell Law Library at Harvard University holds a book, Practicarum quaestionum circa leges regias Hispaniae, a treaty of Spanish law. A faint inscription on the last page of the books states:

* "The bynding of this booke is all that remains of my deare friende Jonas Wright, who was flayed alive by the Wavuma on the Fourth Day of August, 1632. King btesa did give me the book, it being one of poore Jonas chiefe possessions, together with ample of his skin to bynd it. Requiescat in pace." (The Wavuma are believed to be an African tribe from the region currently known as Zimbabwe.)

(It's a little daunting to think about this, because I try to put a little bit of my, um, "self" into everything I write. But really!)