There Is No Frigate Like a Book

I find it strange that some people simply refuse to write in their books, as if the pages were sacred objects meant to be kept unmarked, clean of any human thought other than the writer's. I don't usually annotate novels I read outside of class, but most of my course readings and paperback textbooks have more asterisks than in a comic strip's swear words, more underlining than an emphatically written 18th-century love letter, and more scribbles in the margins than graffiti on a railroad bridge.

Having a conversation with the text, roughing it up and leaving your own imprint—that's the point, not shying away from it and demurring to question or concur.

Sometimes I select what to buy from a used bookstore simply by what a previous reader has added to the pages.
"To Mom, Love Joe, Christmas '85"
"Yes!!"
"Pardon the egg salad stains, but I'm in love."