Today’s question comes from Conspiracy-Girl:
I’m still relatively new to this meme so I’m not sure if this has been asked yet, but I’m curious how many of us write notes in our books. Are you a Footprint Leaver or a Preservationist?Don’t forget to leave a link to your actual response (so people don’t have to go searching for it) in the comments—or if you prefer, leave your answers in the comments themselves!
This is an intriguing question. I guess I’m a Preservationist, but it’s not a deliberate choice.
In my early years of public school, our books were essentially loaned to us by the school district; returning them at the end of the year with marks or writing in them could get you in trouble and cost you money, so I didn’t get in the habit of doing it. It was a bit of culture shock when I made the shift to private (Catholic) school in seventh grade – not only did we have to buy our textbooks, we were pretty much expected to highlight and make notes in them. From that point until I graduated college, I marked, highlighted – and when bored, sketched in – my books quite freely.
But I’ve never really done this with anything other than textbooks, or books I needed for research of some kind (and never in library books!). Most of my reading for many years now has been recreational, and I rarely do it with a pen or highlighter in hand, so my books tend to be un-“note”worthy these days.
I never considered writing in my text books until college for the very reasons you mentioned–I could get in a lot of trouble or fined for it! Once in college, I had no trouble falling into the habit though.
I don’t write in my books now except on rare occasions.
Literary Feline – I can’t remember the last time I wrote anything in a book other than my name or a note to a recipient (if giving it as a gift), and that’s always inside the front cover or on the flyleaf, not in the text.
I liked your answer to this BTT question – you thought about it quite a bit more than I did! 🙂