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While reading, do you mark in your books?

daniel1113

daniel1113

Diamond Member
While reading paperback books, I like to underline words and passages. However, I just can't force myself to do the same inside my hardcover books. I want to underline key ideas, but there's just something about marking up a beautiful hardcover book that gets to me. In fact, I've often found that I purposely avoid buying hardcover books simply because I know I won't write on the pages. Perhaps I'm just crazy.

Anyway, I'm curious how my fellow ATOTers treat their books. Do you mark them up or keep them clean?
 
No. I keep my books in pristine shape. Only in my final year of college, out of desperation, did I begin to underline passages in pencil.
 
I'm the same. I hate marking in any book for some reason. I blame elementary school, where the teachers would hound us about every little mark in our books. That, and the OCD.
 
I voted yes, but only under certain circumstances, i.e., academic work or if I am teaching or presenting material from a said book. As for my fun/liesure books the answer is a big NO.
 
If the book is cheap, yes. My hardback copy of Machiavelli's The Prince is filled with underlined passages and notes in the margins.
 
Where is the "Hell No" option? Books are not for marking in, they are for reading. Underlining or highlighting is a fucking joke and does little to nothing for you. You are better off taking notes on a piece of paper if need be for looking over later as you will remember things much better.
 
Nowadays, I use cut up post-it strips as bookmarks and passage-marks. No damage to the page (erasing fuxxors most inks), and easy to take out.

I use to bend the corner of pages as a mark. I would kick someone's ass for doing that to one of my books...
 
Originally posted by: Ronstang
Where is the "Hell No" option? Books are not for marking in, they are for reading. Underlining or highlighting is a fucking joke and does little to nothing for you. You are better off taking notes on a piece of paper if need be for looking over later as you will remember things much better.
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Agreed. No fcking way. I try to keep the books in pristine condition, to do otherwise would be criminal
 
Originally posted by: Schadenfroh
If the book is cheap, yes. My hardback copy of Machiavelli's The Prince is filled with underlined passages and notes in the margins.
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Yeah, that's probably why I can't write in my hardback books. Many of them are somewhat expensive, unlike cheap softcovers which I mark up all the time. It's not OCD, I'm just cheap. Or maybe it's both 🙁
 
Originally posted by: Ronstang
Where is the "Hell No" option? Books are not for marking in, they are for reading. Underlining or highlighting is a fucking joke and does little to nothing for you. You are better off taking notes on a piece of paper if need be for looking over later as you will remember things much better.
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this is true, but i dont feel like making, or keeping up with, notes. so i do, from time to time, underline things.
 
It was also the highlighter crazy idiots that prevented me from buying many used books when I was in college. I used to flip through some of the used books at the store and many looked like they we more highlighted than not, which just means the last person to use the book was an idiot. I didn't want that kind of distraction when reading. I never sold my books back either. I still have most of them 20 years later. It is probably time to throw them out now.
 
Originally posted by: Ronstang
It was also the highlighter crazy idiots that prevented me from buying many used books when I was in college. I used to flip through some of the used books at the store and many looked like they we more highlighted than not, which just means the last person to use the book was an idiot. I didn't want that kind of distraction when reading. I never sold my books back either. I still have most of them 20 years later. It is probably time to throw them out now.
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Agreed. I can't think of anything more distracting than reading a book with someone else's annotations in it.
 
Learned from my father who has a HUGE book collection. Books are semi sacred (no I'm an atheist) one does not mark them up in any way!
 
Nope.

I read a lot but have never been known to mark stuff in the book.

If there's something in the book that I want to look into more then I'll make a note of it on something else and do so later.

I always have a laptop and my iPhone next to me when I'm reading anyway, so looking up stuff is easy to do.
 
I write small notes in books I have to read for school so I know where to find a passage - it's a bitch reading through the book to find a passage when you're writing an essay. I don't like to mark up the books that I read for pleasure, though. There's something about it being the author's realm for words, not mine.
 
Honestly it never occurred to me. Seems to me that if you're stopping reading to mark things then you're not exactly absorbed in the book. I think I would stop reading any book that didn't hold my attention well enough to keep me from writing in margins.
 
Originally posted by: between
in 5-10 years, we will all be reading our books on Google Books via a handheld reader, or on our mobile phones. Owning a real book will be seen as eccentric behaviour, kind of like people owning a record player today. Your precious dead tree books will be fit for little more than growing mould and mulching the veggie patch with.

electronic books will give us the freedom to go crazy with annotations, notes etc.
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It'll be GLORIOUS...till the power goes out.
 
Originally posted by: dighn
Originally posted by: Ronstang
Where is the "Hell No" option? Books are not for marking in, they are for reading. Underlining or highlighting is a fucking joke and does little to nothing for you. You are better off taking notes on a piece of paper if need be for looking over later as you will remember things much better.
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Agreed. No fcking way. I try to keep the books in pristine condition, to do otherwise would be criminal
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Exactly.
 
Originally posted by: between
in 5-10 years, we will all be reading our books on Google Books via a handheld reader, or on our mobile phones. Owning a real book will be seen as eccentric behaviour, kind of like people owning a record player today. Your precious dead tree books will be fit for little more than growing mould and mulching the veggie patch with.

electronic books will give us the freedom to go crazy with annotations, notes etc.
Click to expand...

Wake me up when there's an eBook reader that has color e-Ink with decent contrast, not the bullshit grey-on-grey of the Kindle.
 
Originally posted by: Ronstang
Where is the "Hell No" option? Books are not for marking in, they are for reading. Underlining or highlighting is a fucking joke and does little to nothing for you. You are better off taking notes on a piece of paper if need be for looking over later as you will remember things much better.
Click to expand...

I never, ever mark my own books, but it doesn't anger me that other people do. I don't know why you're so worked up about it.
 
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