Someone told me writing in books is disrespectful, and I have been composing a response for four days now, which probably tells you how well I took it, so here it is at unreasonable length.
A book is not a museum object, and I would happily make an exception for a first edition of something genuinely rare, which is a different conversation entirely, but a…
I have tried six annotation systems in about as many years and I am back, inevitably, to underlining with whatever pen happens to be nearest.
Coloured tabs: beautiful, abandoned in a fortnight, currently a drawer of tabs
A notebook alongside: works, but I stop reading and start taking minutes…
Half the books I remember best I read in conditions nobody would ever recommend: on a bus, standing up, in a corridor while waiting for something else entirely.
The version of reading everyone pictures, armchair and good lamp and two uninterrupted hours, is one I get about four times a year and mostly waste, because with two hours available I read the way…
