Writing on/in your books?

I used to hate writing in my books but it's a lot easier to study that way so I've evolved my practices a little bit :-P but I still don't like it. It disturbs my reading pace. I sometimes do highlight passages that I think are exceptional so I can go back later but that's about it. However, I am reading a spanish book right now so I'm writing in the words I don't know but not taking any other notes.

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Originally Posted by Nossa

I only write notes on a sticky note and stick it on the top of the page. I hardly write anything on the page itself.

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You have just saved me! Thanks! :banana:

Never! Books are art! Would you ever write on the Mona Lisa or a Vermeer? of course not! I keep sheets of paper by my side and write at my leisure.

I only write my name, year, age and book number on the front (using the dewey decimal system sometimes :p)

I've been dating, naming and signing every book I read since the age of 16 on the very first page when you open them up, no matter what the page may be.

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Originally Posted by Annamariah

I just CAN'T write on my books, not to mention drawing on them. The only exceptions were the exercise books at school, in which were supposed to write anyway. So I did the exercises, and since the book was already "spoiled", I also drew on them and underlined nice words and stuff like that :D But I do feel bad if there is a mistake in a school book I would never write on otherwise, because of course I have to correct that mistake so that I don't accidentally learn it and give a wrong answer in an exam, yet writing on the book still feels awful.

I guess it's just some sort of respect towards the books. I couldn't imagine burning a book, no matter how boring or just bad it was.

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Originally Posted by Bakiryu

Never! Books are art! Would you ever write on the Mona Lisa or a Vermeer? of course not! I keep sheets of paper by my side and write at my leisure.

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It's not disrespectful at all. It is you and the book living your lives together. :) It makes the book part of the family. If anything it's paying the book incredible respect, the honor of what's written as being meaningful and significant.

Let me make clear I'm only talking about books I own. If I don't own them, such as library books, it would be sacraidge to write in them.

No!!! I just can't do something like that! I never even wrote in my schoolbooks like everyone else always seemed to do in school. I really couldn't care less about those books. But if I couldn't mark those up in any way, I would never do that to what I own. I always like to take very good care of everything I own. I have this obsession with keeping things immaculate! :) In fact, I can't even bend the covers back! I want everything to remain as nice as possible.

Nah...I just never have. No notes or anything. I do, however, write my name somewhere in the front and the year(s) I read/re-read it.

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Originally Posted by Lily Adams

Nah...I just never have. No notes or anything. I do, however, write my name somewhere in the front and the year(s) I read/re-read it.

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Well, I do admit to "marking" it with my name! I am guilty of that, but I have one of those presses to put my name into it. So, yes, that way, I am guilty. But as far as writing in them, NO!

I actually like the idea of writing the years in there that you've read them, though!

I always fold in the bottom corner of a page when I come across a passage I like, but I never actually write in a book. The first time I read Dracula it was my teacher's copy and she had scribbled notes all over it, (until about page two hundred, I guess she lost her steam) and I found it very distracting.

I occasionally do give books a letter grade on the inside font cover- A, B, etc, if I intensly love/hate it.

I have no problem with books having something written on them (the ones we own of course) as long as it's not preventing me from reading the text. I buy second-hand books at times and they can have quite a lot written on them and mostly I have no problem with that.

But erm once when I started to learn how to write, I heard some swear-word and I thought of trying it in my hand-writing. As I was quite little, at that time, I practiced it over a book and then later I forgot if I had ever even written anything on it. A few months back, one of my cousins took the same book and came across those words. We had a good laugh about it. But now if it would have been some specific people reading the book, I might have found myself drowning in a little bit of embarrassment. Swear-words don't look nice on a book. :p

And I also remember writing on my brother's register and books (when I had just learnt how to write), "A bad boy owns this book." But hey, I was just a kid then. :p

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Originally Posted by Nossa

I only write notes on a sticky note and stick it on the top of the page. I hardly write anything on the page itself.

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Another one you just saved! :D Great idea.

I don't normally write in my books, the passages that I find good I normally write on a piece of paper, if I am not particularly lazy at that time or even save them in my phone if I can't take the trouble of goin to fetch a piece of paper or a notebook. My textbooks are completely filled though. With notes and notes and notes.

I don't think I've ever written in a book, or underlined or anything.
I prefer the books the way they are and notes or lines in the book bothers my reading.

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Originally Posted by Lily Adams

Nah...I just never have. No notes or anything. I do, however, write my name somewhere in the front and the year(s) I read/re-read it.

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That is such a cool idea, i'm going to have to do that myself. :thumbs_up :thumbs_up

I find myself all over the map on this topic. I've got in trouble as a lad for drawing a picture inside a Bible. The issue wasn't the matter of the picture, but that I would defile the book with my markings. Now I feel like I'm in a confessional admitting that I can force myself to write in a book at all.
I frequently find myself reading a passage that I find particularly lovely or thought provoking and want to mark it, but I don't. However, recently, I found several passages in a The Ambassadors by Henry James that I wanted to come back to if I had an opportunity to discuss the work or James in some forum. For the first time, I dog-eared the pages. I think I'm on the way to recovery and I'll soon be marking the works up as Virgil suggests. I'm looking forward to it.