NYT: 'What I Really Want Is Someone Rolling Around in the Text’ (Sam Anderson)

I have the strange habit described in this article, this "marginalia":

marginalia: underlining memorable lines, writing keywords in blank spaces, jotting important page numbers inside of back covers.

There are some people who like to keep their things neat: for instance my sister, who cringes when someone bends her book covers ever so slightly or, God forbid, dog-ears the pages of her novels. I am the complete opposite. I purposely bend and manhandle my books - to me a good book should be broken in like a pair of shoes. A book that has been read and appreciated should seem so in my opinion. And then comes the marginalia. When I write in the text of books I read, I feel as though I am engaging in dialogue with the author, other readers, and my future self who will read the comments and remember. It's not enough for me to capture virtual, neat notes in the "margins" of an e-reader. No, marginalia is scrawl and, by its very nature, messy and unrestrained. It's meant to be written vertically, in short-hand, and decipherable only with some effort. I don't know; I feel as though there is a creative process involved in the interaction between the reader and the words on a page. The creativity occurs when someone else's words suddenly take on meaning and life in the minds of others.

I'm not completely against e-readers, but I enjoy the physical experience of reading a book. In this sense a book can never be replaced by clean, streamlined electronic interfaces.

What I really Want is Someone Rolling Around in the Text