Recently I picked up off my reading pile a book I’d purchased second hand (most of my work books are second hand books, as long as they’re available – some titles people do seem to keep a hold of!). But the copy I got sent was so heavily annotated by the previous owner that after taking an eraser to the first 30 pages, I gave up and ordered a clean one. Nearly every page had heavy underlining, asterisks in the margins, a few words of comments (“Covid” in several places).
They also read it in the bath, some of the pages are wavy, but that I am totally fine with.
I’m finding myself irritated (like an oyster with a piece of grit) by their thoughtlessness. Maybe even their arrogance, but that’s me stretching into interpretations of their intentions. I prefer to think that they just did not consider the book’s life beyond their own use.
I don’t care what resonated with them, what they found particularly impactful, which bits were significant for them. I found their pencilled voice creating interference, disruption, while I was encountering the material for the first time. I want to be able to do my own absorbing, reflecting, connecting. The book was functionally useless to me.
I ordered another copy.
One day when I have nothing better to do but produce those little squiggly rubbery black crumbs of eraser activity, maybe while I’m watching something on TV, I’ll patiently work through the book and remove the traces of this previous reading. For now it’s on the projects pile.
I used to annotate my books. They’re my books after all, I can do what I want with them, work with them in a way that suits me. But over the years I have started treading more lightly, thinking beyond this present moment, that one day this book may pass on to someone else.
I might give a specific book to someone I know, because we talked about something related. I might prune my bookshelves (perhaps making space for new books!), and donate an eclectic bag to Amgueddfa Cymru. Or all my books might go who knows where after I die. (It better not be landfill. I would spin in my grave.)
Friend or stranger, their next reader will have different needs and priorities – their focus and what resonates won’t be the same as mine. It’s respectful and kind to leave them a clean copy.
An act of caring.
I am only holding my books in trust and benefitting from their use until they pass out of my hands.
In practice, now I use little coloured tabs to mark where I would have make a note. They are repositionable and pretty much endlessly reusable.
Also, look! Pretty.
