Highlighting. Marking the pages. Torturing the book. Folding a flap.....do you?

[leep]

Even textbooks I owned I never marked, just write it down on your notes on separate paper.  I can't think of a time when I would want to remember a passage or try and find something again.  There's very few books I've ever gone back to and most of the time a Google search would answer any quotes.

I use bookmarks to mark my page too, no dog ears for me.

Hard to tell if my books have been read!

[mooshie78]

I can't think of a time when I would want to remember a passage or try and find something again.

I do it all the time with things I'm reading for work since I'm a research professor and thus I'm constantly writing my own articles and citing tons of articles and books in each.

But for leisure reading I usually don't mark anything up.  Maybe I'll write a quote down somewhere if I think I can use it in an article or presentation sometime.

[Ryan Harvey]

I never write in a fiction book while reading it (although I will take notes on my Alphasmart NEO—better than a notepad—while reading if I'm doing a review of it) and almost never at any time afterwards, because of a bibliophile part of my brain that simply won't allow it.

The "almost" part is for The Lord of the Rings. As an insane Tolkien-nut, I own multiple copies. I purposely bought an inexpensive paperback (single volume) just so I could mark it madly with favorite passage, notes on links with other passages, background information, textual analysis, etc. Basically, I turned one of my copies in my "Study Guide" version, similar to a textbook. But I would never mark my various other copies this way.

[Meemo]

I don't, but there are times I've wished I had.  It isn't because I see it as "desecrating" a book - I'll dog-ear, I'll break a spine, I think books should be loved however the owner wants to love them - I myself tend to think of loving a book like loving The Velveteen Rabbit - the more beat up it is, the more it's been read and enjoyed and loved.  I just don't think about highlighting or underlining when I'm reading - I'm too busy reading and (hopefully) enjoying.  There are sentences or passages or conversations that I read and think "Oh that was lovely" or "I wish I had that talent" - and I'll read them several times before I move on. 

There was a book I read a while back that so beautifully & perfectly described my feelings about the beach and the ocean, and when my mom and I talked about the book later she knew the exact passage I was talking about.  I later found a used copy of the book (I'd probably read a library copy) and bought it so I could find the passage.  I'm not sure I found the exact one - that's a prime example of wishing I'd somehow made note of that passage.  I'll probably read the whole danged book one of these days just to find that one passage!  Or at least read up to that point - and I doubt I'd be able to stop there...but this time I will get up and find a highlighter!

[Lursa (aka 9MMare)]

I don't, but there are times I've wished I had.  It isn't because I see it as "desecrating" a book - I'll dog-ear, I'll break a spine, I think books should be loved however the owner wants to love them - I myself tend to think of loving a book like loving The Velveteen Rabbit - the more beat up it is, the more it's been read and enjoyed and loved. 

 

Your comment made me think of this: "A ship is safe in the harbor, but that's not what ships are made for."

I read it in a romance novel decades ago and it has stuck with me. I dont think it was the author's; I'd like to know whose quote it is.

[thwaters]

*eek*  It kills me to write in a book.  I, too, like them to be nice and neat when I put them back onto my bookshelf (or gift them to a charity book sale) after reading.  Even when there are books that have gorgeous prose, like Shadow of the Wind, I simply can't force myself to mark them up, unless... they are nonfiction.  In that case, I'll highlight what I feel is most important and then go back through the book after I've completed the first read-through and reread the highlighted sections -- this helps me to better remember the information.  I agree that everybody should love a book the best way they see fit, but I guess I'm kind of a neat freak.  Even when I buy books at fairs, I'll read the book and, if I enjoy it, then I'll go out and buy a brand new copy if the used one I purchased is too beat up.  Kinda weird, I know.

[cheriereich]

I think the librarian in me just died a little at the thoughts of marking up books.

I hate even folding over a page of a book. Perhaps that is why I like reading ebooks more. Much easier to keep my place. I still don't even do notes in them, although I could.