And the real beauty about the results of such “active reading” is that they most likely (like Fermat’s Last Theorem) will not fit in the margin.

Perhaps there’s a great philosophical lament waiting here about the death of active reading and its replacement with a pale shadow of regurgitation (hmmm, wonder who we get to blame for that).

Hmmm, maybe I’d just better think again about assigning “How to Read a Book” as a required text…

I still remember my first visit to a certain legendary research library where the librarian confiscated all my pens and had to provide me a WOODEN pencil (for taking notes in MY notebook, let us note) before I was allowed near the books. Not too bad of an idea come to think of it ….

To R. Austin:

Its one thing to write in books you own. Its another thing to write/highlight (which I hate even more) in a book you don’t own.

That’s incredibly disrespectful to the institution that is making these resources available to you!

Sometimes they are insightful, sometimes just mundane and sometimes cryptic — I still occasionally try to decipher the notes in an early edition of Shirley Jackson’s The Haunting of Hill House.

So, if the notes are in pencil, don’t conceal the text (highliters and underlining should be banned), I don’t mind them. Though if YOU DO HAVE to write a grocery list, please do it somewhere besides on page 174.

In my own books, I do write cross references, make the occasional correction (what has happened to the profession of copy editing?), etc.