Whoa…it’s been 2 months since I’ve done one of these?

Book Blogger Hop

 

This prompt was submitted by Billy @ Coffee Addicted Writer:

Do you like to annotate your books or leave them untouched?

I’m not sure what kind of monster you take me for. Write in a book? I’d just as soon dog-ear a page. Yeah, yeah, yeah…history is replete with examples of marginalia (and it’s proved to be a helpful resource for scholars), and if you own a book, you should be able to write in it–some people insist on it. But every book in the H.C. Newton Not-Yet-Memorial Library is untouched by pen, pencil, highlighter, or (shudder) Sharpie (outside a handful of autographs, which is totally different*).

There are (at least) two reasons for this–I don’t want to ruin a book with my lousy handwriting, or inability to use a highlighter or pen to draw a straight line. Let’s keep these pretty. But more importantly, I don’t like to be trapped by what I thought was interesting, important, noteworthy, and so on last time I read a book–I want to get impressions this time. (if for no other reason than I don’t want to be disappointed in previous-me). Does this hamper going back to find that one quotation, that killer argument, that metaphor that rocked my thinking? Yes. And that has been a problem. Still…books that please my eyes are worth a little effort/memory-straining.

I’m apparently so well-known for this in my social circles that friends and acquaintances will apologize to me before showing a marked-up book. Which is unnecessary, if a little nice. I bear no ill will towards people who choose to riddle their books with graffiti, sure, I wonder about their priorities, but I know they do the same for mine 🙂 I actually used to know someone who’d borrow books from me and then end up buying me a new copy of whatever book they borrowed because they just had to write in something they read. That actually worked out pretty nicely for me.

* Or is it an inconsistency that frees me from Emersonian hobgoblins?

What about you, do you deface or keep ’em clean?