Top Ten Tuesday: 10 Books I’ve (Shamelessly & Proudly) Written In

Posted on by Holly

Happy Tuesday! This week’s Top Ten Tuesday topic (hosted by That Artsy Reader Girl) asks us to share our unpopular bookish opinions. However, I thought I would hone in on one unpopular bookish opinion and share ten examples of it instead. Perhaps one of my most controversial book habits is that I often annotate and highlight my books. *Gasp!* I know this is an atrocious act to some bookworms, but I view it as the actual purpose of books. To me, books are meant to be experienced, meaning that they are not meant for just sitting prettily on a shelf (with the exception of some expensive editions). I want to get the most out of a book as I possibly can, and if that means underlining or highlighting quotes that resonate with me or writing little notes in the margins, then that’s exactly what I’m going to do. Plus, I think it’s fun to reread a book that I’ve annotated and see what I was thinking about the last time I read it. For me, it’s a way by which I think more deeply about what I’m reading. I don’t do it all the time, but when I do I really enjoy the process.

Now that I’ve explained a bit about this unpopular bookish opinion of mine, here are ten examples of books from my shelves that I’ve annotated or highlighted:

 

What are your thoughts on highlighting or writing in books? What’s your most controversial bookish habit or opinion? Let me know in the comments section below!

Yours,

HOLLY

42 thoughts on “Top Ten Tuesday: 10 Books I’ve (Shamelessly & Proudly) Written In”

  2. I just realised you re-colored your blog from light teal to pink! It looks great! 🙂

    I fully support your scribbling in books. 🙂 While I don’t do it myself (I find is distracting for re-reading) I totally get the impulse to mark favorite passages and leave notes. I particularly LOVE a used copy that’s been annotated because I LOVE seeing someone else’s thoughts in a book. There used to be a thing called travelling books where a group of six-ish people would pick a favorite book and they’d mail it to the next person in the list, who would annotate it, and it would come back around after everyone read it and annotated it and the original person got to read it with all their friend’s notes and I thought that was the COOLEST. Unfortunately, travelling books seem to have died out before I got really immersed in the community.

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    1. Thanks so much! 🙂
      OMG that traveling books group sounds so incredible! That makes me want to do it with some of my friends… would be so interesting to see what everyone writes! Definitely the best kind of book club haha

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  3. I love it that you mark up your books. I use peel-off highlighters, but I may start writing in the books. When I run across a book with highlights in it, I enjoy seeing what has been marked. And I would have loved to have seen books my grandparents or parents marked up. I don’t tend to typically read slow enough to mark my books. The books I have taken the time to read slowly are the books I have loved the most.

    I wrote about Widely-Held But Misguided Notions About Reading. I’d love to see what you think.

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    1. Oooh peel off highlighters? What are those? And same, I would love to read a book annotated by my parents or grandparents! That sounds so lovely 🙂

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  4. Hahaha you’re a brave one!
    I honestly don’t like writing in books simply because my writing’s crap and usually I end making an intelligible mess I don’t even care to look at afterwards. It just feels like destroying a book for no reason (in my case) but I totally get going back to read notes and highlights of quotes you loved 🙂 To each their own!
    What’s important is, like you said, experiencing a book, in your very own way ❤

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    1. I feel that–sometimes I go back and read my notes and end up laughing at how bad my handwriting was. Guess that hasn’t stopped me from continuing to scribble in the margins though haha 🙂 thanks for the lovely comment!

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  5. My Antonia!! Loved that book — I have SO many highlights and notes in my copy. Almost any book I studied in undergrad has sticky notes, highlights and written notes in the margin — it was way easier to do this rather than get a separate sheet of paper to document everything. I have a TON of notes in my copy of The Little Prince. And as much as I despised Mrs. Dalloway, I have so many notes because I had to figure this novel out for school … it was BRUTAL!

    Great post!

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    1. That’s so true–writing in books is so easier than recording notes on separate pieces of paper! Omg Mrs. Dalloway is a brutal code to crack–so glad to hear that you loved My Antonia!!! ❤

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  6. I totally agree with you! My copies of the collected works of Rilke and Keats are absolutely covered in both notes and highlights. I usually only write in poetry books, but there are a few (God of Small Things) classics that I’ve written in.

    My worst controversial bookish habit is definitely that I dog-ear pages, and I just don’t care, haha.

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    1. Glad to hear from another book scribbler! 🙂 Ooh I’ve been known to dog-ear some pages in my time haha. I never put down a book without marking what page I left off on, and sometimes the quickest and only option is to dog-ear… gotta do what you gotta do! 🙂

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  10. Ohh, well I tend not to write in my books at all, but… for some reason I’d love to have a book annotated by someone else or especially by its author haha that has to be so much fun to read 🙂 I’d be SO curious to read your annotations on John Green’s book ahah 🙂
    Lovely list! 🙂

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  12. Ah, this is just something I can’t get myself to do (just like DNFing books). I mean, if someone wants to write in their book, then by all means, that’s fine. You do you. As long as you don’t write in mine? 🙂

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  13. I am guilty when it comes to this practice of doing something in a book – higlightening or writing. Ok, I am not as bad as I was before – now sometimes I make slight annotations with a pencil – but when younger I was much worse 🙂

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  15. Like most people I’ve written in books or underlined things for classes, but not a huge amount outside of this! I’m not sure why, because if I get second hand books that have been written in I LOVE it! I think I get so caught up in the story that I don’t even think about writing in it haha!

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  16. I’ve never highlighted or written in books outside of reading for school, but I can definitely understand why you would! Especially with classics, like many of the ones you’ve listed here. I’ll bet it’s nice to come back later on and see what all your thoughts were initially!

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    1. Aww a book journal sounds like such a great idea!! I used to keep one when I was younger but have gotten out of practice… should bring it back!

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  18. I don’t usually write in books that I read for pleasure (if I read it for a class or something I might) but I’m not opposed to it. I actually like finding a used book with a lot of writing in it. It gives me an idea about what stood out to someone else.

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