Hello, folks! Today I'll be glad to know your opinion about a mania which I have. When you pick up one of the books I'm reading or those which I have already finished, you'll probably get very surprised about the MESS they have become - because of me! I make several notes and disorderly scribbles through it's pages (don't forgive any of them). Sometimes because I don't understand some point, or even because I found something interesting. Then, last week my cousin picked one of my books and she got scared. She said: Oh my god! You destroy your books, Tiago! What a shame!
The question is... in your opinion, do I really destroy my books?
Hello Victoria
Thank you - that's so kind. I would never be able to burn my books. I moved 5 years ago into a tiny little house as a temporary solution, and I had to make a very tough decision. I gave away 10 boxes of books to a local charity. I re-read some of the pink sticky notes as I took them off the thousands of pages and in the re-reading of those notes, there was a tremendous feeling of contentment and reaslisation that 'nothing is ever lost that can't be found.' I comforted myself with the thought that someone else would gain a huge amount of pleasure from my books.
Since then I have moved again more permanently and have started to re-read a lot of the books that I had to get rid of. If I hadn't given up the books, I wouldn't have that pleasure to look forward to - the finding new and beautiful things to put my comments and sticky notes on again. It's easy to be too comfortable.
A time capsule would be fun . . . . .
PS I just commented on your question of names
Isabella, that is really romantic and I may have fallen in love :p
I never thought of it that way. One day someone will own your books (if you dont burn them in some ritual) and they will read your notes and years and years in to the future....ooo you could make one of those time capsule things.
hmmmm.
Hi everyone
I love this question. To Susannah Bell, I love sticky notes - but can I reassure you I would never use them on a library book. OK, the truth is I would remove them before I returned the library book. I use flourescent pink mini ones and I write my comments on these and stick them against any passage I've re-read a hundred times because I love it - for how it sounds, how it feels, for its poignancy, for it's force. Every book I have is littered with little pink mini sticky notes.
I agree with everyone who said they're your books. You paid for the priviledge of making your notes in whatever form you like. For me, personally, I have only occasionally written in a book and even then I used pencil. You'll all be guessing correclty if you say, 'It's when she ran out of flourescent pink sticky notes.'
I found an old book once in a dusty dun coloured shop smelling of old wool and mildew. It was a first edition of 'She Stoops to Conquer' and there was, in ink, an inscription on the forepages, and the owner wrote her thoughts and feelings throughout the book in her beautiful flowing script. I felt immediately attached to long dead someone I'd never known. Through those (naughty) inked in words, I'd entered into the mind and heart of someone who had lived over a hundred years before me. I was connected to the past.
Just think of someone in the future of you and your books who will get to know your most honest and untampered thoughts through those scribblings! Do you call it Destruction or Creation of History? I vote for Creation! Good luck with your scribblings.