Marginalia

The case for writing in books.

I write in my books. In pencil, usually, and lightly — but I write in them. Not just underlines: questions in the margin, arrows to other pages, an occasional no, an occasional yes. A few stars next to the paragraphs I want to find again.

People are sometimes scandalized. You write in books? As though the book were the thing, rather than the reading. As though a clean book were evidence of a respect that a marked-up book lacks.

But the marked-up book is the one I actually read. The clean book is the one I bought intending to read, and gave up on by chapter three, and put back on the shelf hoping no one would notice.

The pencil is a small act of presence. It says: I’m here, I’m thinking about this, I’m going to come back. It says the book is mine — not as property, but as part of the conversation I’m having with it.