advice in the form of graffiti
POSTSCRIPT: The books I own are an ink-splotched mess. Especially the nonfiction, which I annotate as I go. (With fiction, I only annotate on second reading.) It turns them from generic copies into personalized editions: I can flip through Song of Solomon or Six Memos for the Next Millennium (as I did this weekend, while my daughters locked each other in loving tackles), and experience a kind of accelerated rereading, a version annotated with my own prior thoughts. It makes them vastly more useful to me — and more meaningful, too.
Anyway, I hope people are doing the same with my books. It’s possible that my publisher undercuts this by producing such gorgeous, high-quality objects. But even so, you have my permission. Bring your pen! (Unless it’s a library book, which like a campsite, should be left as clean as you found it.)
