The hands thing was gross, but it would have been far worse if it had been, say, his eyes.

(I like how I said “say” right there, like I happened to choose eyes as an example. I HATE EYE STUFF. HATE IT HATE IT. Because I have contact lenses, and I know how painful even the tiniest little irritation can be in your eyes.)

I have thought about it some more, done some soul-searching, and come down strongly in favor of marginalia for other people’s books (I would enjoy reading your copy of a book, for instance, to see what questions you thought of, or what passages you liked), and strongly against in MY books. The weekend after I wrote this post, I went to a book sale and found this gorgeous box set copy of Angels in America, which is one of my favorite plays of all time. Oh it was so pretty. And then I took the books out and opened them and there was scribbling all over the place, and I nearly cried, and I didn’t buy them after all. Because if a book’s going to be My Official Copy of a book, I want it to be as beautiful as possible.

Oh! And as far as marginalia goes, I’m for it. I love writing in books that meant a lot to me, but I usually don’t start making hardcore notes until my second or third reading. I may underline the odd thing the first time through, but I need to build up some momentum before I can start scribbling away.

I love finding used books with marginalia in them, too. one of my most prized possessions is a scribbled-in copy of Macbeth. The former owner underlined all my favourite passages and made some interesting notes on them. It’s a rather old copy, so I wouldn’t have felt comfortable doing this myself. I’m glad he saved me the bother of wanting to make notes without being able to do so.

I just saw this. I don’t mind spoiling it for you but it seems a bit unfair to spoil it for everyone else, so email me if you want me to tell you how she CHEATED oh god I am clearly still not over it: jbrown14464 at yahoo dot com.

Oh, yeah, I know how that goes. Mystique is hard to maintain. Whenever I start a new series of books, I try to find out a few things about each sequel before I begin reading it. That gives me a chance to adjust my expectations and give the books a fairer chance.

I was comforted when I found out that Ursula LeGuin does the random bits of paper thing. Vice loves company.

An emphatic yes to the ending well thing!! A few months back, I watched District 9 with my friend, and it’s hella scary at the beginning, and she would not let me look up the ending on the internet. I got seriously keyed up and not in a fun way. Down with suspense!

I don’t have a real reading journal, but I sometimes note down pages for things that stood out to me and that I might want to refer to in a review. Sometimes I don’t though, since noting things down feels like taking the flow out of the reading to me at times.

I know exactly how you feel about movies! I often need to know if it’ll end well, or just know what the general story is about before I can really enjoy watching.

Cheated how? Oh please tell me! I love to hear stories about how other people are crap. Righteously indignant is my favorite way to feel. :p