To underline certain bits while reading books.

[LauraSaidIShouldBeNicer]

I LOVE reading and quite often have the urge to underline certain bits that resonate with me or is particularly powerful. It might even develop into margin notes. Is this odd?

I've never done it until today I have always not wanted to "deface" my book incase I want to pass it on and today I thought sod it it's my book if I want to I will......

Is a highlighter too far

I do this all the time. I often go back through books I have read to look at what I highlighted. It gives me so much pleasure and is very freeing.

If I am going to keep a book and nobody else is ever going to look at it - what is wrong with writing in it?

Of course I'd never do it to a borrowed book or one I might end up passing on but that is a rarity anyway.

I fold bottom corner of the page a tiny bit. Then, when next reading the book, I try to find the bit that resonated last time- I find at different periods of life, different parts resonate; I quite enjoy working out what bit meant so much a few years ago, often it means nothing to me now.

A friend (deceased) did the same, so when we swapped books, we would try to work out what on the page was important to the other- it was a fun game which I recommend!

I don't recomend highlighters. I highlighted loads of course books - unless the paper is very thick, it shows through on the other side and becomes an irritating mess.

Be careful! I had a copy of Gone with the Wind at university that I had marked up for an essay I was writing on racism in us literature. After uni forgot and lent it to a friend from work. Think she thought I was a secret member of the Klu Klux Klan!

But … Reading is an interactive experience. How can you not underline or make notes in the margin? Some of my earliest childhood memories are of trying to decipher my parents’ margin notes in their books. And it’s always intriguing to return to a book read long ago, and to find the earlier underlinings don’t always accord with what I find most interesting now. Then to underline anew in a different colour …

It’s the main reason I’ve always tried to buy my own textbooks rather than use the library copies. But particularly during my first degree it was great fun to read all the margin notes left in library books - such intense micro-disagreements!

It’s true I can underline books on my kindle app - but if I find a book interesting enough to make notes on, I’d probably buy it.

You can buy erasable highlighters
Mmm, and pencils.

It’s not “defacing” a book, FFS. If it belongs to OP and enriches her experience, it’s fine – it’s known as marginalia and writers from Plath to Poe have done it. Books aren’t untouchable objects — they’re there to be engaged with. When people are precious about them as an object it makes me want to crack their spines and dog their ears (talking about their books here, not the people ).

When I was doing an EngLit degree I used to enjoy getting books out of the college library and seeing the little comments that generations of students had made in the margins. Lots of them replying to previous generations comments. A bit like the Devices' commentary on the prophecies of Agnes Nutter, if anyone has read Good Omens!

But … Reading is an interactive experience. How can younotunderline or make notes in the margin?

How can you read a book and always feel the need to underline make notes? It isn't school homework. I love reading for reading's sake, but have never, ever felt the need to make notes, not even for the book club I am in.

I get a lot of pleasure out of reading, but really don't enjoy analysing a book or pulling it apart. It takes the enjoyment away for me. I was rubbish at English literature at school BTW.

I don't think books should be treated as sacred relics (unless the book you are reading is actually a sacred relic ). Reading should encourage interaction, questioning and debate. Making margin notes, underlining parts which resonate or disturb, it's all part of engaging with the book.

Ah, no - I didn’t say ‘always’, RampantIvy. That’s rather the point - a book that provokes no note-making response is one I may never return to.

Although I might, years later - and discover it had depths and qualities I missed first time around.

But books are like family to me. We’re in constant conversation.

I read all the time.

It was drummed into me from the age of three that you do not write in books at all. I don't even like the highlight option on Kindle, where it shows passages that others have highlighted.

It has never even occurred to me to do this. Before my Kindle days though I did used to buy second hand books and get REALLY pissed off when they were defaced. Reading a book is an experience that I enjoy, but I don't actually want/need other people's thoughts on it.

I do this but then I do like my self help books.

One of the reasons I like to buy books and don’t like kindles or e books!

@actingsergeant

Seems a bit wanky

Yup. I read all kinds of books but I have never felt the need to note where something "resonated with me". In 1984 there were a couple of passages that I physically reacted to with shock but I read them and moved on. Because they provoked a reaction, I remember them so don't need to make notes.

Love this @EdmontinaDonsAutumnalHues

But books are like family to me. We’re in constant conversation

(I did use the word ‘always’, twice in that post - but not in the context of ‘always underline in every book’.)

Nah - it sounds wanky.

Do it. It is your book.

@LukeEvansWife I have a memory like a sieve so need to do the underlining! It helps me remember stuff and then I can flip back.

@EdmontinaDonsAutumnalHues

Nah - it sounds wanky.

But why? A few of us have asked but no answer other than "because I don't want to do it"

I do write comments in recipe books though.

I reread favourite books, but they don't "talk to me".

I can see why some posters might find that a little pretentious.

Sorry SleepingStandingUp - I was responding to Daisyandroses response to my previous post. It’s complicated!

@EdmontinaDonsAutumnalHues

Sorry SleepingStandingUp - I was responding to Daisyandroses response to my previous post. It’s complicated!

I've back read, I'm following now lol

I don’t think I knew - until MN - that the subject of reading is … tricky, and almost offensive to some people.

Was astonished the first time I read here that “displaying” books on bookshelves might be considered an aggressive form of boasting. And that possession of a library (even two short shelves) was apparently a worrying form of hoarding - because you’re only ever supposed to “pick up” a job lot of volumes from Oxfam, read them, and return them immediately to another charity shop.

It worried me for a while - the world felt suddenly strange and hostile. Over it now!

I'm always amazed to find a library, or a second hand book where the previous reader has highlighted something. YANBU

This is totally normal and the reason why Kindles have this function.

If I get a 2nd hand book and it has underlining I will be drawn to that passage and feel solidarity with the previous reader or wonder why they highlighted so I think it's nice.

I hate the kindle I've tried one a few times and still nothing beats a real book! It's not in all books I feel the urge.

I am reading a book called luna living about the moon at the moment and some lines and phases are just shouting at me. I do tend to reread books, so it would be nice to see what was going on within my head compared to then at the reread.

I thought it might be odd but it's definitely not wanky