The Next Best Book Club discussion

I'm very careful with the books I plan on keeping or selling. They look as new after I read them as before. However, I recently started getting books from used book sales and they are usually in bad condition to start with so I'm not so careful with them. I also have no intention of keeping them so I don't care as much either.

When I'm done with a book if I know of someone who would enjoy it, I'll just give it to them. But over 20 years ago I lent Helter Skelter to my husband's friend & never got it back & for some reason it still bugs me! Not my abuse but abuse all the same.

I used to be horribly careful with my books, especially hardcover ones, never folding the pages, always trying to keep them like new. However, something happened in college (maybe it was being an English major) and now I love writing in the margins of my books, and underlining things I think are important or interesting. I like a book to look well loved and personalized, so that if I ever donated the book to goodwill or something the next reader would wonder about the previous owner. It also makes the reading process more interactive and I feel like I get more out of the book now. I still don't write in hardcover books though, I can't get past that one. I actually want to buy the entire 'Harry Potter' series in paperback now (I have the complete set in hardcover, as well as a copy of the first book in the British edition as well as French) so I can mark it up to my heart's content because Rowling puts to much stuff into those books!