What do you use as a bookmark?

[JamesSavik]

Ever since I read Elecivil's last chapter, I've had this question stuck in my head.

I use an index card. Occassionally I'll write a note or two on it. When I'm through with the book, it stays with the book so I'll remember that its finished or at least where I gave up.

Online is easier. The last link accessed is changed so it's like a bookmark.

So- what do you use? Take the poll. If you do something else, let us know.

:geek:

[Paul]

Am I the only one who uses Post-It notes? Can't fall out of the book, you see.

[Guest rusticmonk86]

i fold the pages in half. If it's the second time reading, I don't really care where I was. But, if I'm into the book, I usually remember where I left off.

[EleCivil]

Improvisational stuff, here. I've got a stack of school ID cards ranging from middle school to high school for about four different people (we used to use them as currency/bargaining chips in trades), so I use those most of the time.

[Tragic Rabbit]

Uh, you can only choose one. So I didn't vote. I use three of these listed: 'store bought' bookmarks, anything-handy bookmarks and folding back the dustjacket.

I never use rubber bands, rulers, pens/pencils or memory though am guilty of the occasional dog-eared corner but never on borrowed books or anything other than an inexpensive paperback...and only in a pinch these days. I buy or pick up free bookmarks constantly, almost always fold in the dustjacket if the book has one that's long enough, OR use the book's own receipt, random coupons, notes, envelope, cat toy, post-it, etc. I esp like tassled bookmarks of laminated paper, leather or other but one of my cats has a tassle fetish and always grabs them (even out of the book) and runs off to hide them and chew up the tassle so...I'm currently out of tassled bookmarks. :?

I don't see how memory would work if you read a lot of books at once, which I and I think a lot of people do. I mean, you'd get the pages mixed up between books, surely? Not that I'm sure it's not possible for some people to do. Just seems...more for the one book at a time person and even then, maybe not so easy.

Gabe, you will go to HELL for folding back the actual pages!! Bad, bad boy.

And don't write in books either, have some respect, guys.

Paul, no you are not and they in fact make a specific post-it FOR marking places, you buy a pack of varied colors, little slim post-its that stick, and are FABULOUS for using in a book you're studying or refering to regularly. They not only stay and stick but you can jot this or that small note on them, too. REALLY handy for many, many things. I use them in my Bibles and several reference books, poetry books and others. Great little invention, that, esp that version of post-its. I need to get a new pack of those, actually. And a couple new tassled bookmarks...

Kisses...

TR

[Guest rusticmonk86]

I don't see how memory would work if you read a lot of books at once, which I and I think a lot of people do. I mean, you'd get the pages mixed up between books, surely? Not that I'm sure it's not possible for some people to do. Just seems...more for the one book at a time person and even then, maybe not so easy.

I tend to read many different books at one time. For example, B-Boy Blues, Wicked and Farenheit 451 (which I still haven't finished.) So I'm sure a bike messenger wouldn't get mixed up with the green baby, or . . . burning books.

The only time I ever really had to keep pages was for school.

And I'm already going to hell. But I'll still take the yard stick. I write in books, too. :p

:: shrugs :: I use pencil.

[Tragic Rabbit]

B-Boy Blues, Wicked and Farenheit 451 (which I still haven't finished.)

All good books. Bradbury's 451 is a classic, of course, and Truffaut made a film in 1966 from the book that's pretty cool. I really fell in love with Bradbury's prose at a very young age, maybe first or second grade. That book's actually nowhere near my favorite of his stories. (and Truffaut is one of the best filmmakers who ever lived. )http://www.prairienet.org/ejahiel/fahrenheit_451.htm

Wicked was a fun book but wasn't much like the show at all, and I don't much like any of his other books that I've read. I was turned on to the B-Boy Blues stuff by a bisexual female friend of mine, as a matter of fact.

Pencil is okay, you're exonerated. :p

It's not mixing up the books, it's mixing up the numbers for the books. I just hate skimming pages to find where I was, I prefer to just open the thing. Maybe I'm just lazy?

Kisses...

TR

[blue]

Bookmarks?

Well, my geeky side would have RAM actually in a computer or stored for reuse. But I loved it in Laika.

I usually remember the page or chapter number, but that won't work if I set the book down for more than a week. (Rare, but it happens.)

The little post-it flags TR is talking about are great. I use them for marking chapters or important items in ref. books, or for bookmarks. However, they don't always stick after a couple of lifts. Still, they're great.

Index cards work well, and you can jot down a note.

But most of my bookmarks are improvised, whatever is at hand.

I rarely ever use a bought bookmark, unless the book stays at home, because if I take the book with me to read, the bookmark is liable to get lost in transport or in reading or when getting up to go somewhere in a hurry.

I don't write in books, except reference textbooks, or my Bible. I'll put pages in the front or back, with notes. -- Hmm, on some, I'll need to switch to notebooks.

-- I really, really wish there were a workable, cheap alternative for ebooks and readers, including notes. -- I am trying that out, though.

[Graeme]

I voted for memory, because that's what I use more than anything else. I usually concentrate on one book at a time, so the issue that TR mentioned doesn't apply.

However, I also use an improvised bookmark a lot. The most common one used to be airline boarding passes as I like to read when I'm on a plane, and the boarding pass is just there.... At one point I used to get new boarding passes every couple of weeks, so it wasn't a big deal if I lost one.

[JamesSavik]

I have a really neat little six inch metal ruler with a pocket clasp that I use but only in tech books. I've been writing a lot of C++ lately so it sits in the front part of the C++ libraries reference part of my copy of Yee Oyle Fat@ss C++ Book.

[Josiah Jacobus-Parker]

I tend to just fold down the corner of the page if it's a paperback, but then girls around me are all "AGH! ohmigod, how can you do that to a book? ABUSE!" and I'm just like "wtf mate?"

But with a hardback, I'll use the dustjacket. Hey, if it's there, use it! Also those pages are made of tougher stock and don't fold/unfold as nicely.

I definitely have a habit of writing in my books, and not just books for classes. I just leave myself little notes or underline bits that I think are really great. Of course, none of the comments make ANY sense to anyone else who picks it up.

[Tragic Rabbit]

I tend to just fold down the corner of the page if it's a paperback, but then girls around me are all "AGH! ohmigod, how can you do that to a book? ABUSE!" and I'm just like "wtf mate?"

But with a hardback, I'll use the dustjacket. Hey, if it's there, use it! Also those pages are made of tougher stock and don't fold/unfold as nicely.

I definitely have a habit of writing in my books, and not just books for classes. I just leave myself little notes or underline bits that I think are really great. Of course, none of the comments make ANY sense to anyone else who picks it up.

OKay, mate, I DO 'dogear' the pages of paperbacks, if nothing else is handy AND if it belongs to me. Not often, though I did as a kid and had to be scolded by MANY librarians (and Mother) before I was broken of the habit. It really is a nasty habit, I do admit, and serious book abuse. ](*,)

Hardbacks, hard-to-find books, some authors, even in PB, I'd never dogear. The thing with that is the corner does fall off at some point...maybe by then, it's drifted off to a new owner but, hey, would you like to get a book with little corners missing? :pukeleft:

I do ALSO underline (I used highlighters a lot in college and use them still for my 'study' type books...a hard category for me to define, but so what?) IN PENCIL, and if it's a book that I don't consider intrinsically valuable, and then ONLY if I don't have those little post-it flags handy....I really do need to grab a couple packs asap. Right now, I have one set in my 'carry' Bible (I have two, one from each parent, that I use right now) but that's it.

Now, our ArchAngel :angel8: writing in his textbooks, that's something I understand, though didn't do, I used highlighters. He's still in college and that's a lot of textbooks, well, maybe depending on his areas of study. I remember that bookstores that bought back classbooks took off $ for written-in ones but not for highlighted ones, and I can see the distinction myself. You can far more easily ignore someone else's highlighting than someone's scrawlings...esp in unerasable PEN (boo, hiss!).

I think if you're older and going back to college, maybe you'd be less likely to write, maybe even highlight, in textbooks? I do sometimes highlight, again, in what I call study books, though I'm not taking any college courses ( I do sometimes take 'classes' at church or the local GLBT Ctr, etc).

If it's a line or passage I want to look back at, I prefer either writing it down elsewhere (aka 'taking notes', lol) or using those post-it flags. I used index cards some when I was competitively debating (that's high school and college) but no longer keep them about, tho yeah, they make fine bookmarks.

And Blue :brilsmurf: , I choose to sometimes purchase bookmarks BUT many places just hand them out free or have them in stacks. I grab a batch whenever I see those, so have all sorts of slogans on them. I just have that thing I mentioned for cute little tassled bookmarks with quotes or photos on them that I like, though Heidi Ho! actively seeks them out and destroys the tassle. Guess we both have a thing for tassles.

I have a fair number of 'older' books, anything from pop or sci-fi paperbacks printed in the 50s and 60s to hardbacks from the very early 20th century, and a few from the late 19th. So, people do get books after you, unless you're some kind of nutter and just throw books in the trash! You should always pass on books (and wearable clothes/working household items) to others who might want them after you. [-X

I'm a big believer in the mobility of things and getting the most use from a thing that's possible. Thrift shops, charity sales, all types of places take them, or you can sell them on via Ebay. Whatever, just that one person's junk is someone else's useful item or even treasure...and that is most true of BOOKS. Be good to them!

:thin:

Kisses...

TR :albino:

[Josiah Jacobus-Parker]

I do ALSO underline (I used highlighters a lot in college and use them still for my 'study' type books...a hard category for me to define, but so what?) IN PENCIL, and if it's a book that I don't consider intrinsically valuable, and then ONLY if I don't have those little post-it flags handy....I really do need to grab a couple packs asap. Right now, I have one set in my 'carry' Bible (I have two, one from each parent, that I use right now) but that's it.

Now, our ArchAngel :angel8: writing in his textbooks, that's something I understand, though didn't do, I used highlighters. He's still in college and that's a lot of textbooks, well, maybe depending on his areas of study. I remember that bookstores that bought back classbooks took off $ for written-in ones but not for highlighted ones, and I can see the distinction myself. You can far more easily ignore someone else's highlighting than someone's scrawlings...esp in unerasable PEN (boo, hiss!).

TR

Oh gosh, no! I'd never write in a book I was giving back to someone. And I didn't really mean text books so much as books read for class. Take for example my copy of Paradise Lost or Lolita, both have almost as much of my writing in the margins as there is text. And then, I usually color code for different refferences, so I have to use something non-erasable.

Something like a history text book... No, I don't write or even highlight in those. And not just because they deduct $$ for that. Highlighting isnt really a very good way for me to take in info, so if I'm doing that sort of thing and come across something I know I'll need to remember, I actually just write it down in a file or the like.

public books are sacrasanct and shouldn't be written in. There's nothing worse than getting a book out of the library and finding someone else's scrawl all over the pages.

But I'm kind of a pack-rat with books. If they leave my posession, then it's to be leant to a friend. Thus, all my bookshelves are crammed, sometimes two rows deep with books. :roll:

[Oliver]

Most of the time i use te receipt i get when i buy the book. Years later i can still remember when i read it.

I worked for several years in a public library and you don't want to know what we found in books as a bookmark. Just some items; money (banknotes of 100 gulden, that is about 50 dollar), cottonsticks (and they were used), personal photo's in different catagories and several times we found blisterpacks of anticonception pills. Yep, always read before you go to sleep and you never forget.......

[RMiller]

I use an expired Blockbuster gift card.

[Camy]

Presently I'm using a postcard from my sister, often if a book has a dust jacket I'll use that, and very occasionally if I'm feeling totally lazy I'll fold the corner of the page - I know this damns me to hellfire and perdition for eternity, but hey, you only live once.

Camy

[Josiah Jacobus-Parker]

I've actually changed my ways. No longer do I fold down the corners of pages and thusly damn myslef to an eternity of having my limbs folded in on themselves by vengeful books in a literary hell full of trashy Mills & Boon novels.

I'm currently using a Chinese bank note for 50 custom gold pieces that I found in a drawer. I don't think it's still in circulation, which was a bit of a bummer when I found it. But still it makes for a rather dandy bookmark.

[colinian]

I use a SFMOMA MuseumStore bookmark. They give them away free. They're plastic coated and hold up great, and they're a little oversized so they're easy to find in a thick book.