I unabashedly mark up my books. I love jotting down notes and marring the pages with colourful highlights. Nothing makes a book feel like my own than the hastily scribbled thoughts on the margins. I even love reading books that have already been annotated for the simple pleasure of knowing the unknown reader’s thoughts. But while annotating sounds like a romantic idea, there are some struggles to it that make the annotating-obsessed-bookworm grit their teeth!
BEING UNSETTLED WITHOUT MY STATIONARY
“She loved to walk down the street with a book under her arm. It had the same significance for her as an elegant cane for the dandy a century ago.” – Milan Kundera
I am most definitely the worst example for bookworm aesthetic. Sure, I carry my book around ALL the time…along with my pens and highlighters, and a pencil and eraser, my sticky notes…it’s a big pouch of stationery that I find essential to marking my books. A pink highlighter might sound good now, but wait till I reach a part where the green seems to be more fitting!
RUNNING OUT OF STICKY NOTES
Heaven forbid this ever happen! In the middle of a scene, especially! The more sticky notes in a book, the more I loved it! But the worst is when my sticky notes give up and fall out!
DO I FEEL THIS OR DO I FEEL THIS?
No, seriously, that is ALWAYS the question when I annotate. Am I feeling this scene or do I just like it for the pretty words? Do I highlight the entire section or just this sentence? Many of the passages I annotate aren’t thought provoking, most of the time they’re just phrases I enjoyed or a quirk of a character I love. Hence, why I use different colours.
IT STRIKES UP UNWANTED CONVERSATIONS
Hey, baby, are those markings in your books or are you just a scoundrel?
Don’t you just love it when people assume you’re a bad person for “defacing” a book! I dog-ear a book and suddenly I’m a heretic. I love it. I love the wasted time people set aside for themselves to tell me that I don’t respect a book enough.
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📚 Do you annotate your books?
📚 What is the last annotation you made?
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Sometimes I annotate my book, it really depends though. I usually annotate them while I was rereading as I knew that it is a favorite and I won’t give it away to another people. Mostly, I just use post it though so I can always take it off when someone is borrowing that particular book 😀
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My sister and I annotate in books, so sometimes I come across certain scenes she’s marked. I love knowing which parts of the book she felt most. It’s like a peek into someone’s thoughts ❤
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I never annotate my books, because I always love to keep them… well, perfect, in a way, but that’s just me haha. I only used to annotate my books for my classes. I really admire people who can annotate books and love it, there’s something fun for sure about reading someone else’s notes in the margins, too! 😀
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I have a heavily annotated East of Eden. I got it from a secondhand store, and reading the previous owner’s passages was both hilarious and heart-warming ^.^
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Awwww really, that’s so cool!! 😀
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I have been rereading my favorite books and annotating them as of late and I know the pain of running out of post its, it is awful, or even worse they are not good ones and just lay in the pages.
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Haha yeah! My recent favourites are these slightly see through, coloured post its 🙂 Which reminds me that I need to stock up on them!
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I have not seen those before, where do you find those and who makes them?
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i don’t annotate books myself but i think it’s insane when people say those who do are disrespecting the book!! one, it’s their book, and two, what could be more respectful than marking special passages??
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Hahaha yes! It’s another form of love towards our books, tbh.
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I LOVE annotating in my books! I always highlight and use sticky tabs for my fave parts. I get irked when I run out of a certain color in the middle of the book though and have to switch to a different color. I don’t usually write notes in my book, I’ll write them on sticky notes and put them in the section. I do this just because I worry that my handwriting is going to look weird and cramped in the book, and with a sticky note if my handwriting looks weird I can just throw it away and start again.
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Oh! Love the idea of using sticky notes! I don’t use them cause I worry I’ll have to keep removing to read certain passages! But I’ll give them a try 🙂
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I wish I could annotate books but I get a lot of my books through the library or as ebooks, which wouldn’t really work! I love the idea though!
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Hopefully someday you’ll be able to 🙂 I highlight a lot on my ebooks as well!
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I do like to annotate my favorite books. I use book darts from Amazon and pencil to mark my favorite lines. I haven’t found a pen that I like using yet. The ones I have tried bleed or ghost too much.
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Ah yes, that’s one of my problems with writing in my books. With some pages the pen bleeds through which makes me very uncomfortable. I tend to use fine tip pens for this. Mine is Dong-A Fine Tech 0.4
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Thanks for the suggestion. 😊 I’ll have to check that one out.
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I have never annotated to I don’t have these problems! Sounds fun though! I should try it. I’ll shamelessly use any excuse to use sticky notes LOL
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Hahaha sticky notes are the best! Plus they look so cool when you look at the book from the side. You have a visual of the amount of emotions one book can make you feel.
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I don’t annotate often, but when I do I usually use sticky notes just because my handwriting is big and becomes illegible if I try to write smaller to fit something in the margins of my books.
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I’m big on annotating books! Well highlighting them at least. I need to get some of those lined sticky notes so I can write notes in them!
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You should!! They’re fun to look back at 🙂
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I’ll have to take a trip to my local stationery store!
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