Adler, MJ (1940) How to Mark a Book
How to mark a book (Highlight: 21; Note: 0)
▪ I contend, quite bluntly, that mark-
ing up a book is not an act of mutila-
tion but of love.
▪ There are two ways in which one
can own a book. The first is the prop-
erty right you establish by paying for
it, just as you pay for clothes and fur-
niture. But this act of purchase is only
the prelude to possession. Full owner-
ship comes only when you have made
it a part of yourself, and the best way
to make yourself a part of it is by
writing in it.
▪ Confusion about what it means to
own a book leads people to a false
reverence for paper, binding, and type
--a respect for the physical thing--the
craft of the printer rather than the
genius of the author.
▪ There are three kinds of book own-
ers. The first has all the standard sets
and best-sellers--unread, untouched.
▪ The second
has a great many books--a few of
them read through, most of them
▪ dipped into, but all of them as clean
and shiny as the day they were bought.
▪ The third has a few books
or many--every one of them dog-
eared and dilapidated, shaken and
loosened by continual use, marked and
scribbled in from front to back.
▪ But the soul of a book can be sep-
arated from its body. A book is more
like the score of a piece of music than
it is like a painting.
▪ Why is marking up a book indis-
pensable to reading? First, it keeps
you awake.
▪ In the
second place, reading, if it is active,
is tliinking, and thinking tends to ex-
press itself in words, spoken or writ-
ten.
▪ Finally, writ-
ing helps you remember the thoughts
you had, or the thoughts the author
expressed.
▪ If, when you've finished reading a
book, the pages are filled with your
notes, you know that you read active-
ly.
▪ the physical act of
writing, with your own hand, brings
words and sentences more sharply be-
fore your mind and preserves them bet-
ter in your memory.
▪ And that is exactly what reading
a book should be: a conversation be-
tween you and the author.
▪ There are all kinds of devices for
marking a book intelligently and fruit-
fully. Here's the way I do it:
- Underlining: of major points, of
important or forceful statements. - Vertical lines at the margin: to
emphasize a statement already under-
lined. - Star, asterisk, or other doo-dad
at the margin: to be used sparingly,
to emphasize the ten or twenty most
important statements in the book.
(You may want to fold the bottom cor-
ner of each page on which you use
such marks. It won't hurt the sturdy
paper on which most modern books
are printed, and you will be able to
take the book off the shelf at any time
and, by opening it at the folded-corner
page, refresh your recollection of the
book.) - Numbers in the margin: to indi-
cate the sequence of points the author
makes in developing a single argu-
ment. - Numbers of other pages in the
margin: to indicate where else in the
book the author made points relevant
to the point marked; to tie up the
ideas in a book, which, though they
may be separated by many pages, be-
long together. - Circling of key words or phrases.
- Writing in the margin, or at the
top or bottom of the page, for the sake
of: recording questions (and perhaps
answers) which a passage raised in
your mind; reducing a complicated dis-
cussion to a simple statement; record-ing the sequence of major points right
through the books. I use the end-pa-
pers at the back of the book to make
a personal index of the author's points
in the order of their appearance.
▪ After I have
finished reading the book and mak-
ing my personal index on the back end-
papers, I turn to the front and try
to outline the book, not page by page,
or point by point (I've already done
that at the back), but as an integrated
structure, with a basic unity and an
order of parts. This outline is, to me,
the measure of my understanding of
the work.
▪ Make your index, outlines, and even
your notes on the pad, and then insert
these sheets permanently inside the
front and back covers of the book.
▪ The sign of intelligence in reading is
the ability to read different things dif-
ferently according to their worth.
▪ If your friend wishes to read your
"Plutarch's Lives," "Shakespeare," or
"The Federalist Papers," tell him gen-
tly but firmly, to buy a copy. You wiU
lend him your car or your coat--but
your books are as much a part of you
as your head or your heart.
Planted: Monday 30 June 2025
Last tended: Monday 30 June 2025