Writing on/in your books?

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I've started doing it quite a bit, recently. It all started when I began reading Plato and felt the need to interject my feelings into the conversations. Now, the only time I don't mark up books if if they are strictly for pleasure and have no real literary of philosophical value (sci fi and fantasy).

Writing!?!?!:flare: It's a crime!!! If you have a need to write, write your own book, do not destroy someones hard work.

Personally, I never write in my books. But I do enjoy trying to decipher a previous owner's marginalia.

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Originally Posted by bazarov

Writing!?!?!:flare: It's a crime!!! If you have a need to write, write your own book, do not destroy someones hard work.

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Marginalia is quite acceptable. Pointless scribbling and doodling is, well, pointless. :D

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Originally Posted by Antiquarian

No, never. I hate it if my books are marred in any way whatsoever. I'm not at all a fussy person, but I am fussy about books in that way.

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So you aren't fussy, but you are. Got it. :lol:

I don't do it, because I sometimes sell my books to used book stores or give them to the library and I hate buying books or taking them out and finding that they have someone's name in them or notes on the top of pages where new chapters start.

I always use post it notes, unless I'm so struck by a passage or quote that I know I will not regret highlighting it with a marker.

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Originally Posted by Rogers_68

I have a friend who was once my English professor and she encourages writing in books (so long as you own it, of course), whether academic or recreational. To her it means that the reader is engaging with the book and not just skimming through it.

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I think your professor is right.

I can't read without a Pilot V7 in my right hand. Even really simple books that I've read have a few lines underlined in them. My copy of Kant's Critique of Pure Reason probably has more of my writing in it than Kant's. Underlining and taking notes helps me concentrate. I do it in the book rather than on other sheets of paper to ensure that all of my notes are together with the text, and that my interpretive comments are half an inch from the text they are interpreting.

To me, not writing in books you own is like not moving furniture into your house. The books themselves aren't really artwork. It isn't like drawing on the Mona Lisa unless you're making marginal notes on the author's manuscript.

I use marginalia for the books I read for school (as long as their mine) but not if they're recreational. I don't know why, it's just the way I've always done it.

I write in my own books, but I do not write in books if they are going to be handed on or sold later. I love having little notes to the side to help me decipher what's going on, and I definitely love reading previous owners' marginalia, because it's like having another person expressing another set of ideas with you. However, I also realize that many people do not enjoy having scribbles written in their books, so I don't do it if I might hand on the book to someone else.

``do you tend to underline sentences, mark chapters, write your own thoughts in the margains``


Yup. Do it all the time! It helps me a great deal since I am a recovering amnesiac and have always had a poor memory --- this helps me remember the story a lot better!

Yet, it has another good side that most would not normally consider: when I was in law school, I would take down lecture notes on the book margins. When the professor gave a test, it was usually on matters discussed in class and the notes provided the test answers. After the semester was over I would sell my books to under-classmen and they all reported that my notes were extremely helpful when they were in class. And it helped their test scores, too!