Don’t Be Afraid to Mark Up Your Books: Why Underlining and Annotating Is Actually a Good Thing

Are you guilty of avoiding underlining and annotating your books because you’re afraid of damaging their resale value or simply out of respect for the physical object? Well, it’s time to embrace your inner reader and start marking up those pages!

Reading a book is a deeply personal experience, and for many of us, the act of physically interacting with the text is an important part of the process. Whether it’s underlining passages, writing notes in the margins, or simply dog-earing the pages, our physical interactions with a book can help us remember and retain the information we’re reading.

Interacting with a text physically by underlining passages and writing notes in the margins can actually be a way of honoring the spirit of the book. It shows that you are actively participating in the conversation the author is trying to have with you and expressing your own thoughts and ideas. Plus, creating a lasting record of your own thoughts and experiences through annotations can be just as valuable as the book itself.

When we engage with a text in this way, we actively participating in the conversation the author is trying to have with us. We are expressing our own thoughts and ideas, and in doing so, we are contributing to the ongoing dialogue that surrounds a book.

So go ahead and mark up those pages. Protecting books is important, but there’s no reason to be afraid of physically engaging with them. Happy reading!