Writing In Books: Yes or No?

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I ask this question because, once upon a time, whenever I received a book as a gift it would usually have something written inside, like 'Happy Birthday 1989 from Mum and Dad' or something along those lines, maybe even a more verbose message (I received a gift from two coworkers with three whole pages written on, which I admit I enjoyed immensely). But after a while I realised, I don't like this. First of all, books have quite enough writing in them as is without needing more. Second of all, if I don't like a book, or if I don't feel I'm going to read it more than once, I am in a habit of selling or exchanging them, gift or not, and a message seriously decreases their value.

Then you find books that have been studied, with notes in the margins, underlines, all that nonsense. I can't stand any of it. I want my reading experience untrammelled by the inane insights of other readers, and messages in the front make me nauseous. In some ways it's like getting a CD as a present, and somebody's scratched their congratulations on the disc.

Thoughts?

― writingstatic (writingstatic), Tuesday, 13 January 2004 01:10 (twenty-two years ago)

NO NO NO on taking notes in the margins of my books!! without fail i am always embarassed by the triteness of my juvenalia.

― vahid (vahid), Tuesday, 13 January 2004 01:19 (twenty-two years ago)

I love buying used books with notes or underlined bits in them. Or even little scraps of paper people use for bookmarks. I've found a boarding pass for a London flight and a signature for a cub scout merit badge.

― bnw (bnw), Tuesday, 13 January 2004 01:29 (twenty-two years ago)

If you're giving me a book, I don't mind you writing your name and the date or whatever. I mean, free book. But don't go writing in a book I've lent you. You philistine.

x-post I just got a used book from alibris that has some guy's boarding pass from Orlando to LAX in 2000 stuck in it...

― mookieproof (mookieproof), Tuesday, 13 January 2004 01:30 (twenty-two years ago)

I distinguish between dedications on the flyleaf of a book, and critical notes inside next to the text. Dedications are always fine, as most of my library is second hand i have a lot of this and i don't mind it at all. In older books it's fascinating; i have a number of pre-1914 editions with dedications, the oldest is 1876, and it's great to look at the handwriting, as well as the sentiments expressed.
Critical notes are usually damned annoying, so i avoid buying books with them in unless it's something i know i won't find again soon.
If they're for school/uni courses they'll usually have stuff like IRONY or HAMLET CONTEMPLATING SUICIDE there which you don't need.
There are personal notes however, i know a lot of people do this.
It's something i'd sort of like to do except i can't bring myself to mark my books, but they can be interesting, and if it's by a moderately famous person obv. that increases its value.

So overall DUD, but getting classic the older the edition.....

― pete s, Tuesday, 13 January 2004 01:36 (twenty-two years ago)

EVERYONE PLEASE IGNORE THOSE LINKS I HAVE A FUCK-UP IN MY COMPUTER THOSE ARE IRRITATING SPAM LINKS I MUST GET THIS SHIT SORTED.
SORRY.

― pete s, Tuesday, 13 January 2004 01:40 (twenty-two years ago)

i take notes in margins, i underline text, i wite longer notes in the endpages and if i really like the book i tend to doodle on the cover as well.

― jed_ (jed), Tuesday, 13 January 2004 01:43 (twenty-two years ago)

In the used copy of Flaubert's Parrot that I bought for the book club, a previous owner has placed little check marks in the margins next to certain lines of text. Inside the back cover of the book, the page number of each check mark is listed, next to a word from the line that was checked. Here is the full list:

pertinacious - 11
parthenogenesis - 15
glabrous - 32
tendentious - 34
ipsophagy - 47
cabbalistic - 55
- 60

I imagine these are words that the person made a point of looking up. For some reason the word from page 60 is not listed, but from looking at the line that they checked on that page, I would guess the word was "morganatically". I find an additional check mark on page 72 (probably "valetudinarian"), which is also not listed inside the back. After that, the check marks stop. I wonder if the person stopped reading at that point, or if they just stopped keeping track of the new words.

― o. nate (onate), Tuesday, 13 January 2004 01:44 (twenty-two years ago)

The harder I try to keep a book clean the likelier I am to soak it with coffee when I'm on the last chapter, and I like hoardin em anyway, so I've grown fond of the lived-in look.

x-post:

parthenogenesis?! Please please don't tempt me to turn another ILX thread into a Shriekbackfest!

― Ann Sterzinger (Ann Sterzinger), Tuesday, 13 January 2004 01:47 (twenty-two years ago)

that's the first thing i thought of too,Ann! that big black nemesis comin' back to haunt me.

― scott seward (scott seward), Tuesday, 13 January 2004 01:48 (twenty-two years ago)

I don't understand. What is Shriekback? Is it a band?

I like "ipsophagy". I guess that was Barnes's own neologism. In fact, Google turns up no matches for that word - that's right, none! I suppose he preferred it for some reason to the more standard "autophagy".

― o. nate (onate), Tuesday, 13 January 2004 01:55 (twenty-two years ago)

i think "crepuscular" is a big one for barnes.

― jed_ (jed), Tuesday, 13 January 2004 02:05 (twenty-two years ago)

yes, o.nate, shriekback was a band. a band that gives me pleasant and not so pleasant flashbacks to my youth. ex-members of the gang of four.

― scott seward (scott seward), Tuesday, 13 January 2004 02:08 (twenty-two years ago)

In a jungle of the senses
Tinkerbell and Jack the ripper
Love has no meaning, not where they come from
But we know pleasure is not that simple
Very little fruit is forbidden
Sometimes we wobble, sometimes we're strong
But you know evil is an exact science
Being carefully correctly wrong

Priests and cannibals, prehistoric animals
Everybody happy as the dead come home
Big black nemesis, parthenogenesis
No one move a muscle as the dead come home

We feel like Greeks, we feel like Romans
Centaurs and monkeys just cluster round us
We drink elixirs that we refine
From the juices of the dying
We are no monsters, we're moral people
And yet we have the strength to do this
This is the splendor of our achievement
Call in the air strike with a poison kiss

Priests and cannibals, prehistoric animals
Everybody happy as the dead come home
Big black nemesis, parthenogenesis
No one move a muscle as the dead come home

How bad it gets, you can't imagine
The burning wax, the breath of reptiles
God is not mocked, he owns our business
Karma could take us at any moment
Cover him up, I think we're finished
You know it's never been so exotic
But I don't know, my dreams are visions
We could still end up with the great big fishes

Priests and cannibals, prehistoric animals
Everybody happy as the dead come home
Big black nemesis, parthenogenesis
No one move a muscle as the dead come home

― scott seward (scott seward), Tuesday, 13 January 2004 02:11 (twenty-two years ago)

I took a fair amount of notes in the margins of books I read in college -- but only in pencil. The idea of writing in pen or highlighter horrified me.

― jaymc (jaymc), Tuesday, 13 January 2004 02:16 (twenty-two years ago)

Far from being an act of vandalism, the age-old practice of writing in the margins of books enhances the reading experience, argues HJ Jackson

― jaymc (jaymc), Tuesday, 13 January 2004 02:17 (twenty-two years ago)

pete s: Go to www.lavasoft.de and download the program Ad-Aware. Works wonders for that little problem.

― writingstatic (writingstatic), Tuesday, 13 January 2004 02:41 (twenty-two years ago)

That track and "Faded Flowers" are my fave Shriekback tracks. I have a warm feeling in my stomach now.

Second vahid's "juvenalia" comment. That and overuse of a highlighter. A significant passage/line was quickly lost within whole paragraphs glowing yellow. I've rebought school favorites to get past the embarrassment.

― Chris Hill (Chris Hill), Tuesday, 13 January 2004 02:43 (twenty-two years ago)

that's the first thing i thought of too,Ann! that big black nemesis comin' back to haunt me.
-- scott seward (skotro...), January 13th, 2004.

Heh heh. Yeah, the nemesis of that ball-breaking essay I have to write for work before I can get back to the play, the novel... oh yeah, and that story about the apocalypse I'm supposed to be doing this week too... damn, I just want to lock myself in my room with my spook pop n' never come out. I guess I'm currently, like, at base camp one on a mountain that's much shorter than Everest but it's isolated, dark, and battered by icy 60-mile-an-hour winds all day. They go down to 40 by night, so I have to decide between climbing in higher winds or groping for handholds that I can barely see at all.

But I did read all of Zola's Nana in the original French. There's that -- do we get spotted a couple hundred paginas for foreign-language hills? I've read Jane Eyre twice! I deserve to live!

― Ann Sterzinger (Ann Sterzinger), Tuesday, 13 January 2004 02:55 (twenty-two years ago)

Yeah, and then I posted the above on the wrong &*(#$&# thread. Ann, you boob.

― Ann Sterzinger (Ann Sterzinger), Tuesday, 13 January 2004 02:56 (twenty-two years ago)

I refuse to write in any of my books, and I refuse to read books that have been written in. Nothing bothers me more, as far as reading goes.

― August (August), Tuesday, 13 January 2004 04:07 (twenty-two years ago)

I write in my books all the time, mostly lists of records or peoples' phone numbers, stuff like that, books don't get lost like pieces of paper do

― Silly Sailor (Andrew Thames), Tuesday, 13 January 2004 09:33 (twenty-two years ago)

The only time I write in a book is when it is a gift to a friend. Saying that, finding annotations in a book is quite charming. Juvenile or not they are still a small insight into a person, how the text moved them.

Hiding our thoughts just because we fear they are juvenile is even sillier, you stifle growth that way.

I don't see the point of a book having to be new and unmarked. The text is the same, the story too.

Of course, if the book is not yours then don't write in it, the owner may not like it.

― Paul Watson, Tuesday, 13 January 2004 12:12 (twenty-two years ago)

On a related note: Folding Down Corners of Pages -- C/D?

I do this. I suspect this practice will turn me into some sort of ILB pariah.

― quincie, Tuesday, 13 January 2004 14:04 (twenty-two years ago)

I can't bring myself to fold down the corners of pages. I alway seem to manage to find a scrap of paper somewhere nearby that will serve as a bookmark.

― o. nate (onate), Tuesday, 13 January 2004 15:42 (twenty-two years ago)

While I'd never write in a book myself, I have no problem with personal notes and the like - as long as they don't cut out the price.

― Joseph J. Finn, Tuesday, 13 January 2004 15:56 (twenty-two years ago)

Books are such personal items. If I find a used book with an inscription or margin notes it takes no value away from the book (depending on the book of course), it adds a bit of personal history that in it's self is intriguing. Our books are a reflection of our likes and dislikes and sometimes, on a good day, you can see the notes on my margins. ;)

― Cupie (Cupie), Tuesday, 13 January 2004 16:50 (twenty-two years ago)

If they're for school/uni courses they'll usually have stuff like IRONY or HAMLET CONTEMPLATING SUICIDE

yes, exactly!! classically dud!!

― vahid (vahid), Tuesday, 13 January 2004 17:02 (twenty-two years ago)

"Heather circled many words in her copy of 'Moby Dick' - like 'eskimo."

― Joseph J. Finn, Tuesday, 13 January 2004 17:22 (twenty-two years ago)

If it is my book, I'll do what I want.

Bastards that take a highlighter to library books ought to be burned at the stake.

― earlnash, Tuesday, 13 January 2004 20:55 (twenty-two years ago)

Joseph J.: I hate it when booksellers cut the price out of the first page.

Quincie: I can't bear to turn down the corners of pages. I also have a problem with people in my immediate vicinity doing it. I have been known to hand scraps of paper to strangers on the train when they look as though they're about to fold pages.

― writingstatic (writingstatic), Tuesday, 13 January 2004 21:34 (twenty-two years ago)

If I can't write in the book, I feel at a disadvantage (esp. classics and nonfiction). I have no problem with writing in paberbacks, esp. of classics--they're almost worthless in terms of selling anyway (as opposed to the added value they now have for me). It's not like they're rare!

I don't write in hardcovers, though, most of the time. I take notes on a scrap of paper.

The only problem with writing in books is it makes me embarrassed to lend the books. That's why I mostly stick to underlining.

If I liked a book enough to write in it much, I won't want to weed it. It's the never-touched ones (often gifts) that get weeded.

― Robomonkey (patronus), Wednesday, 14 January 2004 01:09 (twenty-two years ago)

I don't write in books, unless they are for college and then only in pencil, not that I can ever remember rubbing out notes... But I would never write in a library book, or one that didn't belong to me. Think that shows a lack of respect for others.
As for turning down corners, I do that all the time, and I break spines in order to read some paperbacks. once I can still read the text I really don't care about the condition of the book itself, although I often cover books, just so they don't fall to pieces. I like the fact that the books I re-read have a worn look, makes it look well read and after all what good is a book if it is never read?

― Dearbhla Sheridan, Wednesday, 14 January 2004 19:16 (twenty-two years ago)

I use notepaper on which I take notes to serve as my bookmarker. Two birds one stone. I do however underline in pencil, though I rarely actually write any notes in book itself. I find that I'm confident enough in myself as a notetaker to ignore other people's highlights/underlines and to a lesser extent, their annotations.

― Leee Majors (Leee), Wednesday, 14 January 2004 22:41 (twenty-two years ago)

I got Flaubert's Parrot from the library and it's all marked up inside, underlines and notes in the margins. It drove me so insane that I now have to buy myself a cleaner copy or I'll never finish the book.

― scott m (mcd), Thursday, 15 January 2004 02:07 (twenty-two years ago)

I draw in my books. Feet mainly.

― R t V (Jake Proudlock), Thursday, 15 January 2004 03:10 (twenty-two years ago)

I think every book in Goldsmiths' library was written in with either ballpoint pen or highlighter. It was horrible! Who writes in library books? And why?

I sometimes take notes in books, but only in pencil, and only in my own books.

― tokyo rosemary (rosemary), Thursday, 15 January 2004 05:36 (twenty-two years ago)

I write in some books, but not in others: Greil Marcus' Lipstick Traces, for instance, seems designed (at least in the Harvard Press 1990 paperback) for such practice, with its extra-wide margins; while those cheap Dover editions of the classics have pages packed virtually edge to edge with words, making marginalia pretty much impossible. I generally prefer dialogue to monologue (especially when I'm not the one talking), and by writing in my books I can converse with them. I feel a certain amount of literary power that way.

Of course I don't do this with other people's books, which would be like injecting myself into someone else's phone conversation. I also don't dog-ear, because I know how to use a bookmark--and I know that any tall thin scrap of paper is a bookmark.

― Charles Ardinger (Charles Ardinger), Thursday, 15 January 2004 18:54 (twenty-two years ago)

i fold slightly the pages that have stuff i find interesting and may want to read again.. my copy of the god of small things is almost twice its original thickness

― cheeesoo (cheeesoo), Thursday, 15 January 2004 21:01 (twenty-two years ago)

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