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Thursday, June 18, 2015

Writing in/Annotating Books

Hello everyone!

Today I wanted to talk about my thoughts on annotating books. Usually I am one of those people who wants to keep my books in good condition. I like seeing them sitting on my shelf and looking brand new when I flip through them. I hate when people dog-ear the pages or wrinkle a page somehow. Bending the spine never bothered me that much though, I don't know why.
However, since the Paper Towns movie is coming out soon, I decided that I wanted to re-read this book. And since I knew this was a book that I loved reading the first time, I decided that I wanted to go through and annotate it. I decided it would be fun to highlight my favorite quotes and write down the random thoughts that I have while I'm reading it.
I feel like there are certain times and places to write in books. Obviously annotating is required by many teachers or professors, which makes us associate annotating with a negative experience in most cases. But it is true that taking notes and annotating makes us think more about what we are reading. It also takes longer than simply reading the text, but it's possible to get more out of a story that way.
I feel like there are certain books that I would never write in. Maybe they are a first edition of the book, or perhaps signed by the author. Maybe it has some sort of sentimental value that makes you not want to write in in. But I also like the idea that Ariel Bissett brought up in her video when she talked about this subject. I like the idea that if someone borrows my book, they are reading my version of the book. With all my thoughts spelled out for them in black and white. I also like that if it is a book that I know I love and will reread in the future I can see the thoughts that I had in the past about the book and easily flip through to find my favorite quotes and paragraphs. And I think I might start doing this more in the future.
So what do you think? Do you like to keep your books in perfect condition or do you like to personalize your collection? Let me know in the comments, and I will have another post up soon.

<3 Rebecca

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