Today’s Twitter inspiration came to me via a retweet from Modern Gypsy I’ve always prided myself on keeping my books neat, but this tweet, makes me rethink this practice.
It is okay to dog ear pages. It is okay to draw in books. Doodles. Margin notes. Highlights. Books are to be interacted with, argued with, marked, loved. A book belongs to the reader as much as the writer. The reader should let the book know they exist.
— Matt Haig (@matthaig1) July 16, 2018
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How do you treat your books?
I keep my books very clean, organised and shower lot of love on them, as well. 🙂 Some books have my handwritten scribbles on the side, but I try not to spoil them because they are dearer to me than my life. Well, almost. The thought of making them dog-eared breaks my heart, but I totally get your point here. Food for thought here, for all book lovers!
There was a time I did all kind of things in my books while reading – dog-eared, underlined, wrote word meanings, highlighted my favourite lines and then I came to understand this is sacrilegious and therefore stopped doing the same. Now my books are squeaky clean. This post tells me about one’s relationship with one’s books is truly personal and beyond judgement.
Ah, I’m converting from clean to personal then!
I hate dog ears in my books and I like the cover to be pristine. But depending on the book, I love to highlight sentences/paragraphs and make notes in the margins. Some even have post-its if I have something longer to add. 😉
I’ve never done this until recently, MG. I’m going to take the lead from you!
There are some books you have a one night stand with and some books that you have a relationship with. Those books that I have a relationship with, like Hugh Prather’s Notes to Myself, I have written in the margin, I have highlighted. I have made them mine!
Makes sense, Sunita. I’ve started to do this too.
While I agree with the thought shared, but I prefer to keep my books clean. In fact they look new even after I have read them. 😀
I know the feeling, Shilpa. But I’m willing to rethink this.
I keep my books neat and clean, but of late, I have begun marking passages, sentences in the non-fiction books I find inspiring. And, that’s okay, I feel because then the next time I read the book, I will know which are the parts that resonated with me, or which are the ones I need to read on some random day, when I feel low.
Makes sense, Shilpa. Since I read a lot of non-fiction, I’m starting to do this too.
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