A Note on Notes in Books

My days in college still cast long shadows upon life as I currently know it; one of the stranger legacies concerns how I interact with books. I first began copiously annotating my books in college (out of necessity), and that practice has stuck with me right through to today.

Back to college for a sec. I was a Political Science major, which meant thousands of pages per semester, many of which concerned themselves with fairly dull facts. (I didn’t figure out till after graduation that we weren’t expected to actually read all the assigned reading.) I expected myself to be master of things like: Details on the multiple political parties of Albania after the fall of Communism; the common-law precedents of the international regime of legality as we know it today; the political intrigues of each of ten-some regimes that followed France's revolution in 1789.

The clearly impossible task of processing so much information in such a short span of time, and the equally difficult task of reviewing it all for the final exam, necessitated a brutally efficient way or segregating my information. I needed to know what was worth remembering and what to forget. I needed to order the memorable stuff by degrees of worth. I needed an information hierarchy.

I soon discovered that with the use of a pen or pencil*, I could have my hierarchy right there on the page. No underline meant “ignore.” One underline for items that were at least worth skimming the second time around. Two underlines meant: You had better read this damn closely! I found that I could augment my underlines with little stars and check-marks in the margin, and that I could use multiple marks for increasing importance.

This system worked well, so I adapted it to my general reading, which was just starting to become literate.** After all, what’s the point of reading Borges if you’re just going to forget where all the good parts are? But if you underline, you can always know right where to go.

Oddly enough, underlining made me feel like I was more in touch with the text. I had this pencil that was a bridge between me and the book, my own way to get right inside the pages. Holding the pencil while I read reminded me of my constant interaction with the book and made me feel as though I scrutinized every line and wrung out meaning from each book.

Underlining worked well for a while, but soon I started to want space to record little thoughts or textual interpretations that occurred while I read. I began making notes in the margins in tiny, sharp-penciled letters. I found that I could even extend these into the copyright page and that page that was left blank except for the words “For so-and-so” and even into the blank pages at the back that publishers seemed to generously leave there for the explicit purpose of note-taking.***

When I tried to sell some of my books to a second-hand bookstore, however, I was in for a rude awakening: books with writing in them are more or less impossible to sell. This, combined with the fact that I could never remember what page which quote was on led to a new innovation: writing notes, accompanied by page numbers and quotations, in a notebook.

This was good, but it was fairly annoying needing to carry not only my copy of Invisible Man everywhere but also its attendant notebook. It was also about this time that I realized all this writing made reading feel like work. Too many notes disrupted the flow of a narrative, and flipping between book and notebook to copy out lines and page numbers smacked of high school English class. Certainly, some of each book I read was worth remembering for later, but I was taking this too far.

I began leaving my notebook at home, and for a while I just read free of any accoutrements. It’s a tribute to human conditioning that this felt strange at first, this idea of just reading. Eventually I began not to miss my little reading pencil and my notebook.

However, soon after freeing myself from the bonds of pencil and notebook, I began reviewing books, which necessitated some level of note-taking. I knew that I didn’t want to go back to the notebook, but underlining wouldn’t be enough. I needed something quick, something that could remind me of where to look later, but that wouldn’t be so invasive that it dominated reading and subverted its pleasures.

I discovered these wonderful tiny Post-Its that are great for sticking in books. You can leave them sticking out just a bit (making my books look as though they’re perpetually bursting with confetti) so that you know which pages are worth going back to. And, you can write little phrases to help remind you what you were thinking of when you stuck the Post-It in the book in the first place. The Post-Its are a good compromise because they’re quick to apply, and they physically remind me to not go too overboard with the annotations.

As an adjunct to the Post-Its, I also discovered Moleskins, which easily fit in the pocket and weather being dragged around everywhere much better than my spiral-bound notebook. I like having the ability to record longer thoughts or copy out quotations, but I also now often I purposely ignore something I could have copied down and just enjoy the damn book.

The only thing I can be sure of about the future of my textual annotations is change. Throughout my life as a lover of literature, my annotative methods have evolved right along with me. I don’t think either of us are done changing yet.

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*  I’ve never been a highlighter. Highlight or underline? It seems, strangely, like one of those things you intuitively know, and always stick with.

** Don't ask what I read in high school.

*** Now I know that those are the unfilled remnants of the book’s last signature.

Comments

[Michael]

I sort of have a haphazard way of annotating books. If the book is non-fiction, paperback, and inexpensive, I mark it up with a very fine-tipped red pen (underlining, marking with asterisks, writing comments in the margins). If the book is non-fiction, hardback, and relatively expensive, I don't mark it up at all, and instead write notes on paper. If the book is hardback and inexpensive, I might mark it up (depends on the book). If it's fiction (whether cheap or expensive, hardback or paperback), I typically won't mark it up at all ... can't quite say why. Perhaps it's an aesthetic thing. For all types of books, I apply Post-Its, one of the world's greatest inventions, despite the fact that the special-collections director at my university responded to the idea of Post-Its in any books by saying: "NOOOOOOOOOOOOO."

[Scott]

Well, I can't blame the special collections people. Over at Cal's Bancroft Library, they don't even let you take a pen in to view their collection (pencil only). These people are extremely touchy about their books, and I suppose they should be.

[Michael]

Exactly. Although I think this particular fellow thought the idea of placing a Post-It in any book -- even mass-produced, readily available ones -- was a crime (against the paper, the ink, etc.). After using Post-Its as part of my reading habits for years, I wouldn't know how to read without them.

[Scott]

I see. Yes, that is a bit extreme.

[Megan]

Reminds me of the Billy Collins poem, "Marginalia"...

"We have all seized the white perimeter as our own
and reached for a pen if only to show
we did not just laze in an armchair turning pages;
we pressed a thought into the wayside,
planted an impression along the verge."

Moleskins are indeed the answer, far better for note-taking than any electronic device. Post-its are great, but tend to get battered after time. I still dog-ear pages, and I draw boxes in pencil around blocks of text instead of highlighting.

I know one avid reader and rare book collector who keeps two copies of books: one, perfectly pristine for his collection, and the other, a ragged, marked-up dj-less version, for regular consultation.