Defense of the marginal notes in books

Not everyone has the habit of making notes in books. Some prefer to keep them as they looked when they arrived at their hands. Others, however, we are junkies scratching their pages: We love our little record them and pretended findings, we tried to dialogue with ourselves, with the author, with other readers. It may seem an exaggeration. It is. But having a pencil at hand makes reading more enjoyable. Although not all let us note: it is a matter of chance. My name is Belinda and I am a compulsive rayadora books. That is, books that I like.

Of egotism to bookcrossing, here some arguments (cheaters, like most things) in defense of the marginal notes in books.

• Scratching the books is stroking, hitting, grooming and crumble consciousness at the expense of others, of those who had the courage and fortune to star the stripper act hidden behind the publication of a volume. Pure opportunism, complacent. Habit is an intimate, quite selfish, to read. And, at different levels, we are all practitioners of selfishness, but we do not like to admit it.

• A book is a book without scratching uninhabited, a room without bed or bedside table. Read a book first looks at first visit to an empty house and new: the view is attractive, especially because we can change it. If the book remains intact, it is as if we had never gone through it. I am not in favor of anonymity. My books have my name on it. I also note the date on which the start and just, or registration on its pages the reasons that led me to give up half reading.

• The margin notes pay tribute to the author, but also are an excellent opportunity to make fun of the characters, the style of a poem. Nothing like exercise bullying against some narrators, private jokes to count his ribs.

• We read, take notes in the book. When I reread, reread us. We question, we fight with our proposals for five months, and if we're lucky, we can find statements worth developing.

• How else could point out the errors in the books? These minimal but noticeable details are obvious. You have to mark them. You have to take the book its character of a sacred object, cause you to trip and scrape your knees a little. Anyway, if it's worth, he also will make us a bit of damage.

• Sometimes, certain approaches of the authors do not convince us, but we are enjoying reading a lot. In that case, it would be a waste not to modify the statement, the syntax, the arrangement of sentences, word choice. For so it sounds better, because we believe it would be desirable, for fuck.

• I understand the notes in the margin as a stage of the creative process. Infertility can be cured with books lined. Suddenly, we realize that our quotations are parallel stories with sense, that can become an act of creation by themselves accordingly.

• You can tweet notes on the sidelines. Or use them to fill in Goodreads reviews of each title read. This is not true reviews but lists of prints or quotations, but it is still interesting to have on hand. The annotations that we have functions to read and entertaining useless.

• Record amounts borrowed books to engage in intimate conversations with their owners. If we take the book, the other can read us. So it is not advisable to lend books to anyone. Once I paid a very pretty edition of Smothering. I asked permission to scratch. When I returned the book to its owner (and apologized for having exceeded the notes), he told me: "Do not worry, it's funny what you wrote, it was like turbo reread the book as a novel version of the style 30-Second Bunnies . "

• The habit of scratching more interesting books on bookcrossing, this kind of movement means allowing reader books shot for others to pick up. The joke of being a book, in addition to its original content, is to see what the stranger said, and noted in question, sometimes with no name or surname. It's like seeing the girl pants that goes across the bridge. He never saw his face, but no matter.

On the other hand, respect the right not to take notes in the margin, not to talk about what is read, or with oneself or with others. And would not write anything in a book without permission of the owner. In those cases, I fold a sheet of paper, I use as a separator and scoring in it my impressions: an alternative to solve my cold turkey.

Photos: Bookie Looker , Janine