This week’s prompt: Do you like to annotate your books or leave them untouched?
This is an interesting prompt. I’ve always been a bit of an odd reader because I want to keep most of my new books perfectly pristine. I don’t like to let them get banged around, I don’t like stains or spills on them, I don’t like fingerprints on covers that really show them (those soft-feeling paperbacks are the worst because fingerprints can look shiny on a matte background), and I absolutely, definitely, cannot stand breaking a spine. I’ve learned to gently bend the covers and hold them that way to read, which is often awkward, particularly if the binding is stiff and/or the book is a thick one.
Now, there are exceptions to this. If I buy a book used and it’s already beat up, or if it’s a book I don’t care that much about, I’ll be a little less careful with them – I’ve even been known to dog ear a page as a bookmark. And lately I’ve taken to marking some specific books that are more content-heavy and that I’m trying to learn from. For example, I’m reading books about ADHD, and those I’ll mark by underlining passages and occasionally making a notation in a margin. I usually use those sticky transparent line marker and post-its to mark and write longer notes, and I’ll use these on most books that have sections I want to remember or re-visit. Actually marking a book is more rare, and reserved for the books I’m really using to engage with and work on.
So, short answer, I like to do both.
What about you guys? Do any of you do both depending on the book and the condition? Anyone a devoted annotator? Anyone absolutely, positively hate anything that marks or damages a book?
The Book Blogger Hop is a weekly blog link-up that gives participants a different book-related question to ponder each week, and allows them to share their thoughts, find new blogs to follow and connect with new readers. The Hop was originally created by Jennifer at Crazy for Books and is now hosted by Billy at Ramblings of a Coffee Addicted Writer. To see a list of upcoming prompts go here.