Annotating in pencil

On marginalia, soft graphite, and the conversation with your past self.

I used to think writing in books was a kind of vandalism. Now I think not writing in them is a kind of forgetting.

My system is simple and has not changed in years: a soft pencil, a light vertical line beside a passage I want to find again, and the occasional word or two in the margin. No highlighters, which bleed through cheap paper and make every page look urgent. No sticky tabs, which fall out. Just graphite, which is quiet and forgiving and can always be erased.

The real value shows up years later. Rereading a book I marked at twenty is like reading it alongside a younger, more earnest version of myself. Sometimes I agree with her. Often I want to gently ask what on earth she was thinking. Either way, the book becomes a conversation instead of a monologue.

A few practical things I have learned:

• Write the date on the inside cover when you start. Future you will want to know.
• Mark less than you think. A page full of lines is the same as a page with none.
• Keep a short index on the last blank page: a page number and two words. It takes ten seconds and saves an hour of flipping.

Library books, of course, are off limits. For those I keep a small notebook, which is how this site started in the first place.