Does anyone else like buying used books to read the notes that past owners have written in them? I love getting such a weird look at somebody I've never met.
Also, book notes general thread I guess.
I like it if it's a book I've already read, but nine times out of ten it's some unreadable cursive scribble that only the person who wrote it could read
While browsing through a thrift shop I found a really old version of IJ and when skimming through it I saw that the previous reader had made his own footnotes for his notes.
First I thought it was some faggot trying to meme but at closer inspection they were really cool, he/she had her own interpretations and in his/her footnotes were references to other books trying to delve deeper into why that person interpreted it that way.
It's such a shame I had zero cash on me. I could have studied the mind of that person and even find a new way to look at IJ.
It was in another state so I couldn't have returned with cash either because I left for home the day after.
>>7737071
This is the shit I'm fucking talking about, thanks man
I still have a couple Russian sci fi books from my dead father. When I skipping through them I spotted some notes and underlined text passages. Couldn't throw them away but couldn't read them yet either.
>>7737052
I love old books for exactly this reason.
I have a fairly scholarly edition of the collected Pearl Poet, and a woman has strewn her noted throughout the entire book in a very beautiful, handwritten script.
I try to record my own first impressions, or scattered reminiscences, often writing a kind of letter or critique of the author within the margins of the book.
>>7737052
No because i get an urge to burn anyone who desecrates a book(writes in it, folds the pages).
USE A FUCKING NOTEBOOK FOR TAKING NOTES YOU CUNT!
Glad i got that out of my system...
>>7737288
But why, anon? Why worry about what some prick thinks about a book that YOU purchased and can do with as you please? I understand wanting to keep your books nice, I do it myself, but some people like to make their book feel 'lived in' and that's perfectly okay
Breathe, senpai
god no i avoid books with writing in them like the plague and writing in books makes me REEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE
>>7737296
It just angers me. I consider books kinda sacred, and i can just barely handle badly handled books. I mean cracking a book's spine, even on a piece of shit book like Twilight, just angers me. Don't know why, it just does.
>>7737336
Just try it, just once. I never fuck up my books, but I straight up murdered my copy of Inferno while reading it. Like, folded that shit clean in half backwards in multiple places, and it shows. I haven't done it since, but there was something satisfying about the book being a floppy piece of shit by the time I was done. Give it a chance, anon
>>7737336
>books sacred
C'mon, kid.
>>7737366
>kid
Yeah...sure...
>>7737370
Be happy, I'm giving you an out to play your autism off as immaturity.
>>7737376
Nope, it's autism. Also, i was taught from an early age to respect books, and that is what i do. No shame in that.
>>7737052
It is an abomination. I just bought an Alejo Carpentier novel from Thriftbooks, and every fucking inch is covered in notes. Its distracting shit, I can form my own opinion about works.
>>7737288
>>7737336
Marginalia has a noble place in the history of literature and ideas. Fermat's last theorem started as marginalia. Coleridge, DFW, Greene and Nabokov were all fervent margin-scribblers (pic related). Making these kinds of notes is a proud scholastic tradition going back millennia. A library book is one thing, but if you own the copy yourself, what's the harm in making a note in it, when only you will read that particular copy? Seriously -- why don't you pick something less retarded to be sanctimonious about?
>>7737366
Not him, but my mother always taught us to respect all books and not damage or deface them.
>>7737366
Okay, but what's your point
Also
>kid
lmao
>>7737386
1, just because smart people or people you hold in high regard do something it doesn't make it right or the norm. Doesn't make it wrong either. But your argument is still invalid.
2, I'm only saying it makes me angry when i see things like that. I've not said everyone is shit who does bad things to books, and i'm not necessarily in the right about it. So sanctimonious? No, i was not. Retarded? Why thank you.
Why is it so bad that i like to keep my books nice and clean, and that i would like if everyone did? I'm not policing it. I was just expressing opinion.
>>7737052
I don't buy used books for that express purpose, but it's an added bonus sometime. It irks me when there's a ton of highlighting, but that's just because I highlight myself and down the road it complicates things when I'm going back for my own particular passages of note.
I also enjoy finding the random things people have left in them as book marks.
>>7737386
>literally everyone except for coleridge is an ephemeral, puffed up author with the substance of fizzless soda pop
fuck you buddy. you wanna deface a book, write it yourself or never give it away.
>>7737406
>I've not said everyone is shit who does bad things to books
vs.
>i get an urge to burn anyone who desecrates a book(writes in it, folds the pages)
>I'm not policing it. I was just expressing opinion.
vs.
>USE A FUCKING NOTEBOOK FOR TAKING NOTES YOU CUNT!
Yeah, okay.
>>7737406
My personal guidelines for my books:
1. Margin notes are for non-fiction, so I can reflect on past interpretations on rereading or quick skimming. Very rarely would I write in a novel.
2. I try to keep highlighting in novels to a minimum.
3. I underline lightly in pencil words I'm not familiar with and make a tick in pencil at the top of the page to show they're present. That way, when I come to a point where I'm not breaking my rhythm, I can come back to look up their meaning and then erase the marks.
4. No marks of any kind in a hardcover novel that's in good condition; I started this after I found an amazing collection of Sherlock Holmes short stories at Goodwill for $2. No way am I soiling that.
>>7737414
>I also enjoy finding the random things people have left in them as book marks.
moi, aussi
and marginalia can be funny sometimes
I write comments and underline new words in all my books
>>7737426
It's always strange to see people like you fetishising the mere placement of pages between two covers. I bet you're the same kind of person who fills their shelves exclusively with Folio hardbacks. Your esteem for the physical book is clearly greater than your love of its content. It's only a matter of time before you figure out that the best way to keep a book in pristine condition is simply not to read it. Or, judging from your illiterate, sweeping opinions, perhaps that realisation has already struck you?
I wonder if this person made it through the whole of his/her haircut w/ Tracy at some point in the 90s (judging by the phone numbers on the card): they didn't make it past p.100 of "Earthly Powers".
Also love finding any abandoned attempts at diligent flyleaf note-taking/summary.
>>7737451
accusing me of being illiterate because i enjoy taking care of my property. ok.
why ruin something nice that i might want to pass on to my children? i crack spines. i dogear pages. writing or underlining in a book for pages on pages when a tiny notepad more than suffices, and as a bonus, the next person to read this book (inevitable) won't groan from my chicken scratches. pretty simple shit, man.
*is pointless and grotesque
sometimes i do but i don't get how people can fill up the entire page. i can only write like one little observation per 2-3 pages.
My English teacher in high school used to recommend me books and let me read from his collection.
It was interesting reading some of his comments that he had written down in books like Trainspotting and Howl.
>>7737518
>Howl
your teacher was trying to fuck your boipussy.
>>7737439
I'm also >>7737431
Like I said, I jot notes and thoughts constantly in non-fiction, especially books that're trying to express many different concepts. Novels I try to leave alone since people are more likely to borrow them and I feel like the point of a novel leans more towards expressing one overarching theme/message which you can't evaluate fully til you've finished it. But I'll write in novels occasionally if I have a particularly salient thought.
>>7737534
the best kind
>>7737451
kek you are just as autistic as the other guy who puts physical books on a pedestal
I recently got a copy of a mathematics textbook that was owned by quite a well known Physicist. It felt reassuring that he had noted things down in the margins with similar questions as I had. It was nice to see that he also go stuck on some proofs.
>>7737052
If I'm taking a class or writing a paper on a book I will mark it up for certain. Don't do it as much otherwise. That said it can be distressing to look back at marginalia you made years ago. "Why did I need to underline that, was I a complete moron?"
>>7739338
This. If I'm needing to analyse the book particularly heavily, I'll write notes in the margin, or use sticky notes if a margin isn't an option.
I'll buy a cheap copy of the book if I'm doing this though, my margin notes annoy me if I'm re-reading a book later on.
>>7737414
>random things people have left in them as book marks.
once found a forty year old gas station receipt in a French language learning textbook.
I love to write arcane notes on Biblical references in Shakespeare, because it occurs to me that there are so many which go unexplored.
I don't pursue these very far in themselves, but they hold a real interest.
Shakespeare is one of those authors who really does write from the perspective of his mother and father in his works. And he can trace them quite far. I don't know if Shakespeare actually had direct family ties to these places, but he seems to see his father as a Corinthian settler on Siciliy, and his mother as an Ionian of Ephesus.
For a serious student of the Bible, these things hold great meaning.
If I see markings in a book I put it back on the shelf. Nothing triggers me more
>>7740384
aren't you so cool
If you recall, Saint Paulo's Epistle to the Ephesians had a major conflict with the silversmiths who crafted statues of Diana within the city.
I believe Shakespeare connected this with his mother on the basis that Arden comes from the 'celtic' name Arduinna (Diana), and the origin stories for the so-called 'celts' actually trace themselves to Miletus.
Who will follow me in this? Kek
>>7740401
Yeah I guess I am actually. Thanks.
I fucking hate it, it's like someone talking over a movie. Yes, that guy you underlined is the protagonist. Fuck off already.
>>7740384
your handwriting is beautiful
>>7740384
grill spotted
REEEEEEEEEEEE
>>7737052
>i
That book is shit.
>>7740882
DESU I wasn't too picky about the quality of the book in the picture (or the liner notes for that matter). I just needed something that would demonstrate what I meant. Besides, it's Stephen King. We all know what to expect.
>>7740862
Just an artist, thanks...
>>7737288
>not realizing words and ideas are immortal, transient things rather than just scrawls of ink
If you can read it, then there's nothing wrong
>>7740384
why the fuck are your notes bigger than the text? TRIGGER TRIGGER TRIGGER
>Mfw I buy expensive new hardbacks and write in them
I like thinking about where they will journey when I die. Maybe I'll have kids to give them to by then. Maybe not.
>>7737465
I worry about leaving bookmarks in books I've abandoned. If I die, what will people think of me? I've finished several books just for the ability to let myself remove the bookmark.
Yes, I have the autism.
>>7741961
>If I die, what will people think of me?
Probably that you were a human with a finite lifespan.
>>7737414
>I also enjoy finding the random things people have left in them as book marks.
My best finds are a $10 bill (in a library book) and an ancient USAF japanese phrases bookmark.
it was weird as fuck opening a book recently and seeing all the notes in Spanish
you tend to forget that people who speak other languages are existing human beings and that their language is as natural and everyday to them as our own scribbling is to us
>>7737451
alright, let's defuse this a little
our point is: there is scant evidence that marginalia is necessary for a great writer. Coleridge is a particularly eminent example of the relevance of marginalia to good criticism, but we don't know that the habit made the man.
If you like marginalia, that's just fine. but some of us have reasons for not writing in margins. I'll explain a few of mine.
The first and most important point is this: your own marginalia can distract you from the text. If you revisit a poem after a long absence, your marginalia will immediately remind you of where you left off in your interpretation—which may be a good thing, or it may mean that it's harder to take a fresh view. Repeated readings with nothing but the text itself can be a great help.
The next consideration is that you can't (or shouldn't) rely on your margin habits if you take out library books. It really isn't right to intrude on the notice of others notes which are only meant for yourself. Unless you take extraordinarily clear and useful notes, it's unlikely that anyone else wants to see them. Many of those library books are actually quite valuable, and it's irresponsible to deface them. I happen to use library books for 80% of my reading, so writing in margins is usually not available to me.
There is also much use in lending books to friends. Books are in slightly worse condition for lending if they're covered in your observations. This is, I admit, a minor consideration.
So we move on the issue of book condition and why it does or does not matter. I do not deny that worshiping good font and binding instead of good writing is certainly wrong. But I submit that many of us have a reverence for physical books because of what they contain. This is maybe a little subtle and silly, but there is a kind of dignity in the written word; and part of appreciating poetry, I think, is appreciating the physical ink on paper as the visual signifier of physical sounds. When we lose the earthiness of pulp and pulmonary, the flesh of tongue and cowhide, we lose the sensuality of verse. The enchantment of reading is not only the acquisition of ideas, it is the hand and the page, the eye-ball and the printed word, the ear and the warbling. It is the transformation of dead matter into living song.
So I often feel very reverent about books as physical things. As, no doubt, the medievals did when they manually printed and bound their extraordinary codices; nor will this be strange to the Moslem, whose tradition can show many incredibly ornate Korans, where the ornament is given in reverence to the text. And the Catholic thinks his tall Cathedral not idolatrous, but rather a mighty testament to the glory of God.
you know that prank where someone has passed out and you draw all over his face with a sharpie?
now I normally don't advocate pranking, but this would be a very fitting prank to visit upon those who annotate loaned books, library books, etc.
>>7742511
What about writing footnotes on their face as a prank.
Insightful realizations about their person I mean.
>>7742353
Your opinion is depending on what a “book” is, and this notion evolved through the ages. An Irish monk, a Syrian scholar aren't esteeming the idea of “book” you do. There was nothing like a cheap paperback held with staples and the very idea a print might contain is bound by the print itself as an item; no distinction could be made. On another hand, its concrete value was significantly higher, enough so the mere desire to write something down in the margin was nearly criminal. What you may find luxurious today was probably a book of regular to slightly better than usual quality back in the day. Holding a fierce interest in grammar and language related titles, I frequently come across cloth-bound hardbacks published a century ago and I don't feel the book has been defaced. This was as common as $20 books you can buy nowadays in any bookshop.
>>7737052
You could read S. It is ostensibly a library book called Ship of Theseus but is filled with scrawls and notes by two readers. It's also has post cards and other feelies stuffed inside.
>>7742522
>Your opinion is depending on what a “book” is, and this notion evolved through the ages. An Irish monk, a Syrian scholar aren't esteeming the idea of “book” you do. There was nothing like a cheap paperback held with staples and the very idea a print might contain is bound by the print itself as an item; no distinction could be made.
I don't suppose you could be a little clearer? I don't see what you're saying here.
I'm aware that the arts of binding and especially of copying have changed immensely since the Middle Ages, and that our literature is produced very cheaply. I'm also aware that things have become especially inexpensive in the last century with paperbacks.
Nonetheless we can notice some things about Medieval manuscripts which are purely decorative and would tend to increase the labour required to produce them—attention to calligraphy, laborious illustration work, and highly decorative work on the boards and spine. I am not arguing that we should, by analogy, prize Victorian novels so highly as they prized their elaborate tomes; nor can I conceive how you thought I was making such an argument. My argument was only against the in my opinion vulgar idea that we must prize the language content of a book only, and neglect the form in which we print and bind those ideas. I was arguing that, as the medievals were wont to decorate their literary productions, so we ought to consider that creating beautiful books is not contrary to the idea of loving a text for its meaning; that we need not only care about raw text data. I meant to argue only for a philosophy that says we can value the physical vessel BECAUSE it contains something important, and against the opinion that the form of the physical book is irrelevant to appreciating the content. Thus we can be sensitive to ugly ink marks because they are ugly, and not because they detract from value.
On the separate question of marginalia as defacement of property: when I said some Library books are valuable, I did not mean late Victorian cloth-bounds, which you seem to think I adore. I mean books that are out of print, or over two centuries old, or valuable for their bulk—large reference works, etc. At my library many of the books are worth over two hundred dollars, which might be nothing to someone of a certain irresponsible mind, but it tends to dissuade me from putting my pen on the paper. Of course I know that they expect damage to occur to their books, but the fact that this necessarily happens is no excuse, in my mind, to contribute knowingly to the degradation. We should further notice that, though cloth bounds were "as common" as paperbacks nowadays, they were not therefore as inexpensive. Book prices have, on the whole, gone down. And what was acceptable for a book OWNER at the turn of the century, is not equally acceptable behaviour for a book BORROWER now. But I'm not interested in arguing further the moral question of writing on library property.
>>7742515
* Here we notice a slight deformation in the nose; Brad contends that this is a later corruption of what was originally a good Roman nose; but it is far more likely that God has a sense of humour.
some one wrote everywhere in my copy of the confusion of young torless, 75% of my books are used so most have something in them.
other highlights:
>my copy of thus spoke zerisustra had a psychiatrists card in it and was half highlighted
>my complete plato only has highlights in apology, republic, and meno. I'm guessing it was for a class
>alot of books only have notes in the first few chapters leading me to think they didn't finish the book.
I don't really like to put in notes, but if a book already has them, and I don't think I'll sell it I well anyways.
>>7737386
the thing is, sometimes stupid people underline everything or make inane comments such as "metaphor" etc etc. so it's safer not to write in a book; write elsewhere
>>7739311
which physicist? which textbook?
>>7737052
You might enjoy pic related.
>>7743081
Also people have terrible handwriting.
>>7737336
its because you love the idea of books and not books themselves... get over your materialism
you anti-materialists are full of shit. you can talk a big game about valuing the content over the mere package of the book, but you buy your Penguins &c because they use a good font and come in a polished (albeit frail) package. You put up with cracked spines and tears and so on not because you find appearance irrelevant, but because they are not ugly to you; they tell of wear, which signifies having been read, which is a good look. You would not put up so well with something printed in a hideous binding with ugly textbook font, bad formatting, etc.
Some of you have posted photos of marginalia where the image is too small to read the notes. I have noticed this a lot online, and I've concluded that you find marginalia visually pleasing. It looks like intellectual activity and deep engagement. You delight in the bold strokes, the daring of writing over a master's work. You feel satisfaction at the filling of the margins. And you share photos of notes not as evidence of usefulness (are they useful? we can't tell!)—no, they are evidence of the aesthetic value of marginalia. It is a visual fetish. And it allows you to feel a deep satisfaction when you flip through the book and see page upon page of intellectual completion as the pen marks go by.
The marginaliaphiles are materialists just the same. Except whereas the orthodox materialist adores the virginal whiteness of a text unmarked, this kind of materialist enjoys marking his territory; he must carve his name into every bark and stone, he must paint the book black; his pleasure is in looking out and seeing the marks of his mastery scattered over the conquered world.
And this is every bit as aesthetic and material, and just as little justifies the pretence of greater regard for literature.
>>7743402
I'm gonna go burn a book right now.
>>7743426
classic. you prefer material symbolism to pure argument.
>>7743402
#SCOLDED
>>7737052
I'd get pretty mad if I discovered someone had underlined or written on a book I'd paid money for.
>>7737052
When I went to University my father gave me his old University books, most of which I had already read but it was a symbolic thing: The complete works of Shakespeare, T.S Eliot's The Wasteland, standard uni fare.
I didnt look at them for a long time because they were tatty but when I went through them, they were covered in his handwriting- all sorts of great textual references that I had never considered.
I still have all those books on my shelf. Fuck I miss my Dad
>>7743402
This is a very silly and presumptuous post. Firstly, there is a difference between preferring the content to the physical form and fetishising the physical form. I like a nice book too, but I don't treat it like some holy, divine object. Objecting to this irrational book-reverence does not automatically place me in the other extreme where I don't care about them at all. There is no contradiction between liking to make notes in the margins of books and preferring an agreeable typeface to an unpleasant one.
As for your incisive diagnosis of the psychology of marginalia which somehow proceeds entirely from resolutions of pictures available online ... well, maybe it's just that: the resolutions of the pics available aren't great. I didn't take the picture of the Nabokov notes; I merely found it online, and uploaded it because it was pertinent to my point. If you think you can extrapolate from this the entire content of my psyche -- or anything substantive at all about it, for that matter -- you're clearly in the wrong. It's just blowhard, pseudo-Freudian bullshit.
In case you care to know, it isn't aesthetic at all to me: I often find some of the notes I made ugly, and regret them. But the process of reading with a pen in hand sharpens my mind. And I quite like, upon revisiting a book, to revisit also the thoughts I had on it the first time, and seeing how my thoughts the second time pair up. And when going back to find a section that I liked, it is faster and easy to look for the note I made. It's utility, not aesthetics.
>>7743690
>This is a very silly and presumptuous post.
It's equally silly and presumptuous to assert that someone who enjoys nicely bound and decorated books doesn't care about its contents.
Once i bought a used poetry book. American poetry antology, a nice one too...
Well on the front page there was written with a clean cursive writing something like
>my dear Marco, happy birthday! Stay the wonderful kid you are, we love you so much!
How can you sell a gift like that. Fuck you marco...
>>7743724
Maybe he died.
>>7743711
Certainly true, but I've asserted no such thing. I like nicely bound books too. My problem is not there, but with the type of person who considers books holy objects to the extent of "getting an urge to burn anyone who writes in it".
I've read Nicolas of Cusa's hand notes to Pseudo Dionysius. They're in Latin, but pretty easy to understand. They're very interesting, almost like notes of a contemporary reader.
>>7743744
Fair enough.
>>7743402
generalization: the post
>>7743765
Shit, Not Pseudo D. but Eriugena.
I like it in some books. I buy some for 'collecting' purposes, in which case I don't want marks, but any I get to just read\have on hand I do rather enjoy it as long as it doesn't ruin the work, by making some unreadable, etc., but I've rarely had notes get that bad. In the majority of cases I also like it for a peek into either another reader and\or another way to interpret the work.
>>7743711
i assume youre replying to me. which was >>7743267 and not >>7743690. I agree I actually should have said that the guy loves the idea of books MORE than books themselves. As for myself, I just rent books from the library man. Is that it's own form of materialism in a way? idk i dont think so but who knows it probably is. I try to put in the effort to avoid that shit though
>>7743772
making up generalizations is one of the best things we do; and it's certainly what writers ought to do. it's a bit spaghetti-against-the-wall, but being wrong isn't so bad
>>7737386
>Making these kinds of notes is a proud scholastic tradition going back millennia
>he doesn't know about how memoria-oriented scholastic tradition was
>>7740384
I think I recognized that writing.
Are you the Canadian qt that has top grades in latin and greek and also has 2 tumblrs ?
>>7737052
The woman who owns the used book store I go to has a copy of Watership Down that was owned by one of her former customers. At the bottom of each page there's a small illustration of the rabbits that someone drew. They even drew some of the key scenes with these tiny cartoony rabbits. The book was owned by someone who had passed away and their kids were selling all of their books. She couldn't sell the book because of how marked up it was so she kept it.
My version of 2666 belonged to some guy called André Zucker and has the occasional underlined piece of text. Most of the time I don't immediately see what made André think so much of those fragments as to underline them, and I spend some time dwelling on what made that memelord care so much. In a weird roundabout way, he's offering me his own impressions of the text and pointing out things I wouldn't otherwise have cared for.
>>7745374
that's awesome. normally I don't like marginalia, but decorative marginalia is cool
>>7745493
Yeah, she has quite a few books like that that she keeps. She sometimes sells them to people, but that one she won't. She usually uses it as a teaching tool to read to the kids once a week.
>>7737101
I know Russian, scan a few pages and post here if you can
One of my professors went into a bookshop in Paris and bought Schopenhauer's copy of Kant.
