You know, I was raised that it was strictly taboo to write in a book. They were never to be touched by pencil much less pen or highlighter. Yet, I always read with a pencil or pen in my hand. I chewed on it. I tapped it on the book. Stuck it behind my ear for ready access. I wanted, I really wanted to write in some books. Not all mind you, just some.
Fiction, doesn’t quite lend itself to note taking right in the book in my mind. Although there is the occasional passage, like the one I noted from Inkspell in an earlier post that just stands out so that you have to grab it somehow. I don’t write in every non-fiction book either unless there is a quote that particularly haunts me.
The books I hone in on are those that I expect to use professionally or for further personal study. Even those, I generally scan through first to make sure they are worth the effort of a slow, time-consuming read – worthy of marking up and keeping for ages. Because if I write in a book, it is mine. (As an aside, that’s something I don’t understand about donations to the Media Center – books I get that are marked up, highlighted, notated. Why give them to a library? Obviously they can’t be put on the shelf . . .)
Bryan L. posted about Writing Notes in Books. Varied responses. In one of them he said:
I would enjoy seeing some of the note , highlighting and tabs people put in books
So here are some of mine (click on the pages for a larger view) . . .
From How to Read Slowly by James Sire.
From A Fresh Look at Writing by Donald Graves. This one is really messy. It’s foundational when I teach writing courses. Clear tabs to mark chapters. Post-its everywhere.
This is a current book I’m working through for the first time. Wisdom and Eloquence by Robert Littlejohn & Charles Evans. Tabs have gotten much nicer.
