Reading, Book Ownership, and bookmarks
Apr. 27th, 2025 08:55 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
enujaI have gone through a lot of cycles with book reading over the years. In grade school, I checked a really extraordinary number of books out from public libraries. The amount of reading assigned for my school work was far below my desired reading volume, starting as soon as I learned to read. I found that I had to control myself, and not finish my textbooks early, because I would forget details of the text by the time we got to them in class.
In middle school, most of my pleasure reading transitioned to science fiction and fantasy novels. Literary fiction and non-fiction were restricted to school assignments, for the most part. In high school, I started to have favorite books I would reread over and over again, but mostly I would just check those books out of the library over and over again, although I did buy books from a few favorite authors. My family did not have a habit of buying books: we had a habit of borrowing books. I had friends who had large personal libraries, and I would often borrow books from them, but I had no intention to own very many books.
When I got to college, the amount, and especially the difficulty, of academic reading started to lead me to reading mostly for school. Reading published research papers, even in biology, can be a slog. I bought the books I was required to buy, both at the school bookstore, and in those early days when Amazon was mostly a way to get required textbooks, used, much more cheaply than from the school bookstore, from Amazon.
After college, I didn't go directly to graduate school: I worked at coffee shops and a grocery store, and I got back into reading for pleasure, in a major way. And for the first time, I started to read fun and enjoyable non-fiction written with skill and even, sometimes, suspense. Almost everything I read at this stage of my life was checked out from the public library.
When I went to graduate school, pleasure reading again almost completely dropped out of my life, for the same reasons as in college. But after I dropped out of graduate school, and moved to Chicago, I started reading voraciously again. Wobbegong was bringing home a lot of really readable history and sociology from his grad program, and I read most of it, too, along with a lot of public library books. I started my LiveJournal, and wrote a really extraordinary number of book reviews.
After Wobbegong left Chicago, I continued to read quite a lot. I had a long train commute to work, and I continued to check a lot of books out of the library. While waiting for a bus to take me to the Botanic Garden, I discovered Amaranth Books, an extraordinary little used bookstore in Evanston, which is curated and organized in an idiosyncratic way. I felt like it had a shelf of non-fiction books just for me. I started buying books occasionally. A very good friend of mine gifted me a Kindle, and I started occasionally buying books for Kindle, too.
But then, I started biking almost everywhere, and, very slowly, I mostly stopped reading books. Unlike my previous reading droughts, which were because of the extensive reading I was doing for college, I just started reading less. Having a highly distracting smart phone with me all of the time also greatly reduced my reading time: I got into the habit of looking at my smart phone, instead of reading a book, at lunch at work.
Over the past seven years or so, most of the reading I have been doing is rereading beloved books, that I own physically, or have on my Kindle.
And then I started picking up books from little free libraries. They have a bit in common with public libraries, although of course the selection is much, much, smaller, and if you see something you want, right now is the time to grab it, because you don't know if you'll ever see it again. And there's no borrowing time limit on the books. Little free libraries are the exact opposite of the curated Amaranth Books in Evanston.
I have felt a little guilty about not returning my little Free Library books fast enough, and never adding new books to the Little Free Library collective collection. I was also tempted by some books I saw at work, so I bought them, with the goal of reading them, reviewing them, and then donating them to a Little Free library.
Yesterday was Independent Bookstore Day, and I decided to visited three different independent bookstores. I bought books from all three bookstores, and all three put a branded bookmark in my new book. Despite the extraordinary amount of money I was spending at them, the college bookstores of my past did not give out free bookmarks.
Over the years I have mostly used scraps of paper and old receipts (including public library receipts) as bookmarks. I bought a metal bookmark at the Art Institute last year, but it is too large and heavy, and falls out of books when they are loose in my backpack.
I was reading a Little Free Library book yesterday, on the train, with a scrap of cardboard that had once been a tag on a jacket as a bookmark. And after I left my first bookstore, with a new book and a new bookmark, I started using the new bookmark in my book, because it it works better as a bookmark.
I spent way too much money on books yesterday, and I don't want to start buying a whole lot of anything, even books. But I think I've switched to using actual bookmarks, instead of receipts and other scraps.
I really do want to keep reading and reviewing books. Whether I get books at public libraries, little free libraries, used bookstores, new book stores, or read digital versions, I am rededicating myself to reading. Reading, and writing, really make me feel so much better. This last reading drought was too long and too deep.
In middle school, most of my pleasure reading transitioned to science fiction and fantasy novels. Literary fiction and non-fiction were restricted to school assignments, for the most part. In high school, I started to have favorite books I would reread over and over again, but mostly I would just check those books out of the library over and over again, although I did buy books from a few favorite authors. My family did not have a habit of buying books: we had a habit of borrowing books. I had friends who had large personal libraries, and I would often borrow books from them, but I had no intention to own very many books.
When I got to college, the amount, and especially the difficulty, of academic reading started to lead me to reading mostly for school. Reading published research papers, even in biology, can be a slog. I bought the books I was required to buy, both at the school bookstore, and in those early days when Amazon was mostly a way to get required textbooks, used, much more cheaply than from the school bookstore, from Amazon.
After college, I didn't go directly to graduate school: I worked at coffee shops and a grocery store, and I got back into reading for pleasure, in a major way. And for the first time, I started to read fun and enjoyable non-fiction written with skill and even, sometimes, suspense. Almost everything I read at this stage of my life was checked out from the public library.
When I went to graduate school, pleasure reading again almost completely dropped out of my life, for the same reasons as in college. But after I dropped out of graduate school, and moved to Chicago, I started reading voraciously again. Wobbegong was bringing home a lot of really readable history and sociology from his grad program, and I read most of it, too, along with a lot of public library books. I started my LiveJournal, and wrote a really extraordinary number of book reviews.
After Wobbegong left Chicago, I continued to read quite a lot. I had a long train commute to work, and I continued to check a lot of books out of the library. While waiting for a bus to take me to the Botanic Garden, I discovered Amaranth Books, an extraordinary little used bookstore in Evanston, which is curated and organized in an idiosyncratic way. I felt like it had a shelf of non-fiction books just for me. I started buying books occasionally. A very good friend of mine gifted me a Kindle, and I started occasionally buying books for Kindle, too.
But then, I started biking almost everywhere, and, very slowly, I mostly stopped reading books. Unlike my previous reading droughts, which were because of the extensive reading I was doing for college, I just started reading less. Having a highly distracting smart phone with me all of the time also greatly reduced my reading time: I got into the habit of looking at my smart phone, instead of reading a book, at lunch at work.
Over the past seven years or so, most of the reading I have been doing is rereading beloved books, that I own physically, or have on my Kindle.
And then I started picking up books from little free libraries. They have a bit in common with public libraries, although of course the selection is much, much, smaller, and if you see something you want, right now is the time to grab it, because you don't know if you'll ever see it again. And there's no borrowing time limit on the books. Little free libraries are the exact opposite of the curated Amaranth Books in Evanston.
I have felt a little guilty about not returning my little Free Library books fast enough, and never adding new books to the Little Free Library collective collection. I was also tempted by some books I saw at work, so I bought them, with the goal of reading them, reviewing them, and then donating them to a Little Free library.
Yesterday was Independent Bookstore Day, and I decided to visited three different independent bookstores. I bought books from all three bookstores, and all three put a branded bookmark in my new book. Despite the extraordinary amount of money I was spending at them, the college bookstores of my past did not give out free bookmarks.
Over the years I have mostly used scraps of paper and old receipts (including public library receipts) as bookmarks. I bought a metal bookmark at the Art Institute last year, but it is too large and heavy, and falls out of books when they are loose in my backpack.
I was reading a Little Free Library book yesterday, on the train, with a scrap of cardboard that had once been a tag on a jacket as a bookmark. And after I left my first bookstore, with a new book and a new bookmark, I started using the new bookmark in my book, because it it works better as a bookmark.
I spent way too much money on books yesterday, and I don't want to start buying a whole lot of anything, even books. But I think I've switched to using actual bookmarks, instead of receipts and other scraps.
I really do want to keep reading and reviewing books. Whether I get books at public libraries, little free libraries, used bookstores, new book stores, or read digital versions, I am rededicating myself to reading. Reading, and writing, really make me feel so much better. This last reading drought was too long and too deep.
