5 ms·

Am I the only one who finds this appalling? I'm not a religious person but for me paper books are sacred. I would never mark in a book and am scandalised when

Am I the only one who finds this appalling? I'm not a religious person but for me paper books are sacred. I would never mark in a book and am scandalised when I see someone else do it.

jaclaz 8y ago
Thank goodness, I am not the only one finding this habit a terrible, unforgivable profanation of the book. At least there are two of us.
ginko 8y ago
Writing notes or underlining random sections feels like someone shouting comments during a movie in a theater.
- yoz-y 8y ago
  More like shouting comments at a TV alone in your room.
  - Engineering-MD 8y ago
    I think the analogy holds if you assume he means shared books, like in a library.
- cmiles74 8y ago
  I certainly feel this way about the passages that the Amazon Kindle chooses to highlight (I think it's based on how many people underline a section). It is not my favorite feature.
  - komali2 8y ago
    You definitely used to be able to turn that feature off, not sure if they ripped that toggle out or something though.
yoz-y 8y ago
I was raised with this worldview but after seeing piles upon piles of discarded books that no one will ever read again I changed my mind. It's your book, you can do whatever you want with it. If you want a pristine one you can always get a new one. It might be wasteful but compared to all other waste we produce it's negligible and at least you got something out of it. I'd much rather have the resources be used on printing more of good books rather than full color advertising pamphlets that line the floor.
- pjmlp 8y ago
  Who knows, maybe 2000 years from now it is a glimpse of what we were reading in 2018. Surely no one expected accounting tablets to be read in the 21st century.
supersrdjan 8y ago
I hold the opposite view: I read books to extract intelligence that will help me operate in the world. So I interrogate them like detectives interrogate suspects in movies. I sit alone in a room with a book and point a light at it. By the time I am done the book is in terrible shape -- it is lacerated with earmarks, scratched with scribbles, and if it's a soft cover its spine is cracked. The more worn down the book ends up, the more intel I extracted. There might even be some sadistic pleasure in the process. I think the idea of revering books as objects comes from an earlier time when books were rare and expensive. But now that books are abundant and cheap, it's a useless conviction. We should cherish books for their content not their physical form. Plus, once I mark up a book it becomes one of a kind and more valuable. If I keep it intact it's indistinguishable from all the other thousands of its clones. On occasion, I pick up books from my dad's library. His marginalia from decades ago enhance my reading experience. It becomes a meeting of three minds instead of two. I also enjoy putting down my scribbles next to his. Perhaps a few decades in the future my son will stumble on the same book, traverse the same pages, and trace the thoughts and reactions of his predecessors. For me, that is much more compelling than accumulating a family library filled with pristine volumes that make it indistinguishable from a commercial bookstore.
- icc97 8y ago
  I very much like the idea of passing down notes through the generations. Much better than one of those Patek Phillipe watches. There's lots of discussions I never had with my dad, mostly cause it's too awkward but private notes in the margins read when the same words are going into your brain seems a great idea. It's the thought that occurred to them at the same exact moment in time that you're at.
abecedarius 8y ago
Someone once wrote that there are two kinds of book lovers, the platonic and the carnal.
coldtea 8y ago
>Am I the only one who finds this appalling? No, many people think things will last forever if they treat them as if that's the case. Then, after they're gone, usually their kids throw out all their pristine books in the garbage, or sell them for $1 per box at a yard sale.
- Steve44 8y ago
  Having recently done this I totally agree. We kept about 20-30 books out of several hundred, the rest went to charity shops.
  - coldtea 8y ago
    Yeah, I have too many books myself (the biggest hurdle in any move to a new rent place). I'd like to go to a purge and only keep ~ 200-300 of special value (signed, perennial favorites, reference works, rare prints, non available digitally, etc). What grinds my gears is how ebooks don't have a common format for notes/marginalia, ability to easily export whole passages, etc that can sync to my note keeping apps, work processors, etc. Each is its own silo (if they even allow for proper annotations).
  - icc97 8y ago
    Did any of the ones you kept have marginalia?
    - Steve44 8y ago
      No. My parents and grandparents were fairly precious about books and if they wanted to would make separate notes. Occasionally they'd have inscriptions on the front pages about where they came from or who they belonged to etc. I used to do it in technical manuals but never in novels. I've thought about it but when I actually go to do it think it's silly and my thoughts are my thoughts not to be shared. Off feeling as I love the idea of it. I have started pencilling in the front cover my initials and when I read a book, just gives it a little life I think.
krapp 8y ago
Paper books aren't sacred. They were when they were rare, and handwritten by scribes, and stored in archives like the Library of Alexandria to which scholars made pilgrimage, but now books are mass produced like any other media, and much of them are also backed up to software as well, so the medium is in a way irrelevant. You could burn books by the millions today and society would lose nothing of value, so long as we can print millions more, or still have an internet.
unfunco 8y ago
Books are data storage with shitty capacity.
Vaskivo 8y ago
Who kills a man kills a reasonable creature; but he who destroys a good book, kills reason itself. Areopagitica ~ John Milton (slightly edited)
- Steve44 8y ago
  This isn't destroying a book though, it's adding more life into it.
stewbrew 8y ago
A few decades ago, books were often rather expensive. People didn't buy a book but borrow it from a library and they shared book with others. Or they planned to sell a book later on. In such a situation, it's better to make notes on extra sheets of paper. Since books are cheap now and you hardly get anything for used books (unless they are an antiquity), it probably doesn't matter. I still think though there is a surplus value in making notes on extra sheets of papers: it's easier to skim through your notes and to find something, and it's easier to archive your notes.
cmiles74 8y ago
I think a big part of this process is getting away from the belief that your reactions to the text are somehow less important than the text itself. One way to elevate your own thoughts and ideas is to write them in the book, alongside the text that inspired the thought or caused the reaction. In my opinion, it is often easier to revere a famous author than it is to revere yourself. The examples in the article are from famous authors writing in the margins of other famous authors: it's clear why people find this interesting. Perhaps you will touch someone in your own life and someday the notes you write in the margins of your own books will be something that they hold dear. I think that is so much more valuable than leaving behind a book with pristine pages and an unbroken spine.
amorphous 8y ago
I have completely switched to digital. Novels on Kindle (I often read in my second or third language and a pop-up dictionary is very handy), non-fiction on Laptop as PDF which I intensively annotate. Annotating, scribbling and highlighting is part of active reading which I found very valuable.
wodenokoto 8y ago
The amounts of money I've saved by selling my college books in "very good condition" is appallingly small compared to the lost learning opportunity. You are not alone, but I wish I took more ownership of my books and added notes and corrections.
icantdrive55 8y ago
No---you are not alone. 1. First edition books, the Bible, Koran, etc. should not be fooled with. I have a 1st edition of Uncle Tom's Cabin, by Harriet Beecher Stowe, that I treat with utmost respect. It's sold gold in my mind. 2. I guarantee paper books will be the next big collectible thing. Right now so many people are dumping them, but they will be very collectible again. Hell--the 1st edition market is still pretty strong, and has been for as long as I remember. (I'm too old to argue. I'm taking a break from HN. I never added much, but stuff like this shouldn't bother me at 5:38 am.)
Tomte 8y ago
I used to feel this way. I don't know how, but I lost that feeling pretty quick when I tried making notes in the margins. Also, I felt the book "lost its value" when I scribbled in it. This point can be easily overcome by realizing that you will never "sell" a used book for more than postage, except for extraordinary books like art books etc.
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
athenot 8y ago
> I'm not a religious person but for me paper books are sacred. I would never mark in a book(…) You might be surprised by how many religious people profusely annotate their sacred texts. :) But I see your point: to keep the book undefiled so it can have a long useful life and perhaps even be passed down generations. However the point is utilitarian, not sentimental: the purpose of books is to expand the mind of the reader, and in the age of cheap printing the book can be molded to its reader. When you go back and read a book, you can get a better glimpse of what you were thinking the previous times you read a section, and reflect on whether that position confirmed over time, got invalidated or perhaps became a bit more nuanced.
emidln 8y ago
I find underlined text, highlighted text, and notes in margins distracting. It's harder to read the text, and I rarely care about what some previous reader of unknown mental faculties found useful.
phnk 8y ago
> I'm not a religious person but for me paper books are sacred. Most of my French friends are genuinely revolted by how I treat the books that I use for work. I highlight, write in the margins (often with a pen, not even with a pencil), then scan passages for students, who in turn, are often revolted by what they see.
detaro 8y ago
I get that for really rare books, but in general markings/notes aren't bad, and can be very interesting to future readers. I think in a book borrowed from a friend, inherited from a relative or otherwise obtained from someone I know margin notes etc are quite nice to have, giving an insight into what they thought when they read it.
gglitch 8y ago
I view a book as a machine for producing knowledge, ideas, and affects. Writing in the book is, for me, standard machine operation that does not impair its usefulness.

Am I the only one who finds this appalling? I'm not a religious person but for me paper books are sacred. I would never mark in a book and am scandalised when I see someone else do it.

jaclaz 8y ago

Thank goodness, I am not the only one finding this habit a terrible, unforgivable profanation of the book. At least there are two of us.

ginko 8y ago

Writing notes or underlining random sections feels like someone shouting comments during a movie in a theater.

yoz-y 8y ago
More like shouting comments at a TV alone in your room.
- Engineering-MD 8y ago
  I think the analogy holds if you assume he means shared books, like in a library.
cmiles74 8y ago
I certainly feel this way about the passages that the Amazon Kindle chooses to highlight (I think it's based on how many people underline a section). It is not my favorite feature.
- komali2 8y ago
  You definitely used to be able to turn that feature off, not sure if they ripped that toggle out or something though.

yoz-y 8y ago

I was raised with this worldview but after seeing piles upon piles of discarded books that no one will ever read again I changed my mind. It's your book, you can do whatever you want with it. If you want a pristine one you can always get a new one. It might be wasteful but compared to all other waste we produce it's negligible and at least you got something out of it. I'd much rather have the resources be used on printing more of good books rather than full color advertising pamphlets that line the floor.

pjmlp 8y ago
Who knows, maybe 2000 years from now it is a glimpse of what we were reading in 2018. Surely no one expected accounting tablets to be read in the 21st century.

supersrdjan 8y ago

I hold the opposite view: I read books to extract intelligence that will help me operate in the world. So I interrogate them like detectives interrogate suspects in movies. I sit alone in a room with a book and point a light at it. By the time I am done the book is in terrible shape -- it is lacerated with earmarks, scratched with scribbles, and if it's a soft cover its spine is cracked. The more worn down the book ends up, the more intel I extracted. There might even be some sadistic pleasure in the process. I think the idea of revering books as objects comes from an earlier time when books were rare and expensive. But now that books are abundant and cheap, it's a useless conviction. We should cherish books for their content not their physical form. Plus, once I mark up a book it becomes one of a kind and more valuable. If I keep it intact it's indistinguishable from all the other thousands of its clones. On occasion, I pick up books from my dad's library. His marginalia from decades ago enhance my reading experience. It becomes a meeting of three minds instead of two. I also enjoy putting down my scribbles next to his. Perhaps a few decades in the future my son will stumble on the same book, traverse the same pages, and trace the thoughts and reactions of his predecessors. For me, that is much more compelling than accumulating a family library filled with pristine volumes that make it indistinguishable from a commercial bookstore.

icc97 8y ago
I very much like the idea of passing down notes through the generations. Much better than one of those Patek Phillipe watches. There's lots of discussions I never had with my dad, mostly cause it's too awkward but private notes in the margins read when the same words are going into your brain seems a great idea. It's the thought that occurred to them at the same exact moment in time that you're at.

abecedarius 8y ago

Someone once wrote that there are two kinds of book lovers, the platonic and the carnal.

coldtea 8y ago

>Am I the only one who finds this appalling? No, many people think things will last forever if they treat them as if that's the case. Then, after they're gone, usually their kids throw out all their pristine books in the garbage, or sell them for $1 per box at a yard sale.

Steve44 8y ago
Having recently done this I totally agree. We kept about 20-30 books out of several hundred, the rest went to charity shops.
- coldtea 8y ago
  Yeah, I have too many books myself (the biggest hurdle in any move to a new rent place). I'd like to go to a purge and only keep ~ 200-300 of special value (signed, perennial favorites, reference works, rare prints, non available digitally, etc). What grinds my gears is how ebooks don't have a common format for notes/marginalia, ability to easily export whole passages, etc that can sync to my note keeping apps, work processors, etc. Each is its own silo (if they even allow for proper annotations).
- icc97 8y ago
  Did any of the ones you kept have marginalia?
  - Steve44 8y ago
    No. My parents and grandparents were fairly precious about books and if they wanted to would make separate notes. Occasionally they'd have inscriptions on the front pages about where they came from or who they belonged to etc. I used to do it in technical manuals but never in novels. I've thought about it but when I actually go to do it think it's silly and my thoughts are my thoughts not to be shared. Off feeling as I love the idea of it. I have started pencilling in the front cover my initials and when I read a book, just gives it a little life I think.

krapp 8y ago

Paper books aren't sacred. They were when they were rare, and handwritten by scribes, and stored in archives like the Library of Alexandria to which scholars made pilgrimage, but now books are mass produced like any other media, and much of them are also backed up to software as well, so the medium is in a way irrelevant. You could burn books by the millions today and society would lose nothing of value, so long as we can print millions more, or still have an internet.

unfunco 8y ago

Books are data storage with shitty capacity.

Vaskivo 8y ago

Who kills a man kills a reasonable creature; but he who destroys a good book, kills reason itself. Areopagitica ~ John Milton (slightly edited)

Steve44 8y ago
This isn't destroying a book though, it's adding more life into it.

stewbrew 8y ago

A few decades ago, books were often rather expensive. People didn't buy a book but borrow it from a library and they shared book with others. Or they planned to sell a book later on. In such a situation, it's better to make notes on extra sheets of paper. Since books are cheap now and you hardly get anything for used books (unless they are an antiquity), it probably doesn't matter. I still think though there is a surplus value in making notes on extra sheets of papers: it's easier to skim through your notes and to find something, and it's easier to archive your notes.

cmiles74 8y ago

I think a big part of this process is getting away from the belief that your reactions to the text are somehow less important than the text itself. One way to elevate your own thoughts and ideas is to write them in the book, alongside the text that inspired the thought or caused the reaction. In my opinion, it is often easier to revere a famous author than it is to revere yourself. The examples in the article are from famous authors writing in the margins of other famous authors: it's clear why people find this interesting. Perhaps you will touch someone in your own life and someday the notes you write in the margins of your own books will be something that they hold dear. I think that is so much more valuable than leaving behind a book with pristine pages and an unbroken spine.

amorphous 8y ago

I have completely switched to digital. Novels on Kindle (I often read in my second or third language and a pop-up dictionary is very handy), non-fiction on Laptop as PDF which I intensively annotate. Annotating, scribbling and highlighting is part of active reading which I found very valuable.

wodenokoto 8y ago

The amounts of money I've saved by selling my college books in "very good condition" is appallingly small compared to the lost learning opportunity. You are not alone, but I wish I took more ownership of my books and added notes and corrections.

icantdrive55 8y ago

No---you are not alone. 1. First edition books, the Bible, Koran, etc. should not be fooled with. I have a 1st edition of Uncle Tom's Cabin, by Harriet Beecher Stowe, that I treat with utmost respect. It's sold gold in my mind. 2. I guarantee paper books will be the next big collectible thing. Right now so many people are dumping them, but they will be very collectible again. Hell--the 1st edition market is still pretty strong, and has been for as long as I remember. (I'm too old to argue. I'm taking a break from HN. I never added much, but stuff like this shouldn't bother me at 5:38 am.)

Tomte 8y ago

I used to feel this way. I don't know how, but I lost that feeling pretty quick when I tried making notes in the margins. Also, I felt the book "lost its value" when I scribbled in it. This point can be easily overcome by realizing that you will never "sell" a used book for more than postage, except for extraordinary books like art books etc.

deleted 8y ago
[deleted]

athenot 8y ago

> I'm not a religious person but for me paper books are sacred. I would never mark in a book(…) You might be surprised by how many religious people profusely annotate their sacred texts. :) But I see your point: to keep the book undefiled so it can have a long useful life and perhaps even be passed down generations. However the point is utilitarian, not sentimental: the purpose of books is to expand the mind of the reader, and in the age of cheap printing the book can be molded to its reader. When you go back and read a book, you can get a better glimpse of what you were thinking the previous times you read a section, and reflect on whether that position confirmed over time, got invalidated or perhaps became a bit more nuanced.

emidln 8y ago

I find underlined text, highlighted text, and notes in margins distracting. It's harder to read the text, and I rarely care about what some previous reader of unknown mental faculties found useful.

phnk 8y ago

> I'm not a religious person but for me paper books are sacred. Most of my French friends are genuinely revolted by how I treat the books that I use for work. I highlight, write in the margins (often with a pen, not even with a pencil), then scan passages for students, who in turn, are often revolted by what they see.

detaro 8y ago

I get that for really rare books, but in general markings/notes aren't bad, and can be very interesting to future readers. I think in a book borrowed from a friend, inherited from a relative or otherwise obtained from someone I know margin notes etc are quite nice to have, giving an insight into what they thought when they read it.

gglitch 8y ago

I view a book as a machine for producing knowledge, ideas, and affects. Writing in the book is, for me, standard machine operation that does not impair its usefulness.