Should have read classics discussion

Ok, I will admit it, I have a very bad habit of not using a bookmark when I read books. I usually, lay them on the couch with the pages facing the couch*gasp*. Yes, I know that it breaks the spine and ruins the book, but I'm lazy. Trying to change my ways, when I noticed 4 books from my kids scattered around the couch, all placed in the spine breaking position. Need more bookmarks!LOL Am I alone on this?

I have a whole collection of bookmarks and regularly switch depending on my book and mood. I even have one I cross stitched with bears and my kiddos names. I love my bookmarks!

Lisa wrote: "Ok, I will admit it, I have a very bad habit of not using a bookmark when I read books. I usually, lay them on the couch with the pages facing the couch*gasp*. Yes, I know that it breaks the spi..."

I do the same when it comes to bookmarking my book. Though I now try and use an actual bookmark. A free one from the book shop. I must get into the habit of using a bookmark more often.

I have lots of cool bookmarks but never seen to be able to find one when I need it...I think they are all being used marking my place in the dozen or so books I've started and never finished. Hmmm...maybe I should do something about that. So I usually either grab the closest scrap of paper I can find or dog-ear the page I'm on. If it is a library book I use the paper scrap; however, if it is my own book I use the dog-ear technique. Sometimes I lay the book down on the couch, using Lisa's technique, but only if I am going to come back to it soon.

How funny--I thought about this very thing last night as I closed my book to go to sleep. In my old age I'm using bookmarks!!! I've always had a collection but usually just turned down the page of the book--what I think Kerri calls dog-ear--never heard that expression but surely can see the derivation. I have never put the book down opened in the spine break position--probably because I always have the books in a place where I don't have a surface to do that.
I have to say, I am really loving my bookmarks --some have poetry on them, some are just pretty and a few, like my Books on the Teche ones, are from bookstores of which I am fond.

I use a picture. I like to use different pictures for different books. Sometimes with me and my husband, sometimes of my boys, some with all of us. I'd love to get a bunch of beautiful bookmarks. From different places or trips I'll take so I can remember those moments. I'm too anal about the books I own to dog-ear the pages. Hehe Maybe I'm weird that way...

I'm really going to work on this. Maybe start my New Year resolution now...going to use bookmark from now on! LOL

Oh Kaila, my Mom and the nuns used to go crazy with my turning down the pages--I like your idea of using pictures--I have enough of them.

Lisa--I always buy a bookmark at historical and other places we visit--reminds me of the stay.

That sounds much more useful than spoons or shotgasses.

LOL--I have a wall of spoons AND several charm bracelets!

Oh, and I bring back books too--many are already on my read list!

You all will be proud of me, have used a bookmark faithfully for WIW. Must be all of the great support in this group! HAHAHA!

I am proud of you Lisa, keep up the good work!

I do a little something different. Maybe it's weird, but I use an index card for a bookmark. Every time I come across an unfamiliar word, I jot it down on my index card! Then, I look the words up in the dictionary. I usually don't find many new vocabulary words in modern books, but I do find quite a few in classics!

That is a great idea! Very clever.

That is a good idea. That is one reason why I love reading books on the Nook. You can highlight the word and look it up right then.

I'm starting to be really intrigued by the Nook. It sounds very handy.

Enid,
Literature, language arts, and reading teachers around the world are singing your praises. You must have been such a good student!

And science teachers, too, who had to correct many a term paper with misused and misspelled words!

Of course science teachers too...how could I forget them!!!

The blessings of cleaning ones office after an unmentionable amount of years of neglect is that I have now found 7 lost bookmarks. But the most important find was the flash drive with a slew of our photos on it!

Wow! Now you have more pictures to scrapbook.:) Nice job cleaning the office, that is easy to put off.

I used to use bookmarks but for years now I either remember where I last read or I lay the book pages face down (if it's for a short time).

niquae wrote: "I used to use bookmarks but for years now I either remember where I last read or I lay the book pages face down (if it's for a short time)."

Wow, you must have a great memory! Do you read more than one book at a time?

I use bookmarks and pictures-whatever is handy. I do like coming across a bookmark that I have had for a long time, (i.e. one I am using now is from the 80's TV show Beauty and the Beast! Hysterical!) I also got many as gifts, etc. It is fun to use pics too-my son is humiliated that my fave one shows his sister in a diaper, and himself in his birthday suit in front of the tub! Both kids have quite a collection too!

P.S. The kindle has a dictionary too! I love mine!

Andrea wrote: "I use bookmarks and pictures-whatever is handy. I do like coming across a bookmark that I have had for a long time, (i.e. one I am using now is from the 80's TV show Beauty and the Beast! Hysteri..."

Was that the show with Linda Hamilton as Beauty? Ha, haven't thought about that one for ages.

yes-Linda Hamilton! Wasn't that show a trip? I loved it!

Lisa wrote: "niquae wrote: "I used to use bookmarks but for years now I either remember where I last read or I lay the book pages face down (if it's for a short time)."

Wow, you must have a great memory! Do y..."

I don't have that great a memory but I've almost always been able to find the page I was last on.

I do read more than one book now but half the books I read are in ebook format so it's easier to keep track of where I left off. ^_^

Darn, I was going to say that an ereader is the answer to all my bad book habits, but after reading some of your other posts, I'm not so sure now! HA!

Andrea wrote: "yes-Linda Hamilton! Wasn't that show a trip? I loved it!"

I don't remember much about it, maybe it is time to look it up on Netflix! I love the bookmarks of your kids, do you show everyone all their home movies also? Whip out the pictures for their prom dates? HAHa! I love it! My 10 yr old would die of embaressment!

Lisa wrote: "Darn, I was going to say that an ereader is the answer to all my bad book habits, but after reading some of your other posts, I'm not so sure now! HA!"

:D

Well, it might be a sufficient deterrent for your reading habits. I just happen to be incorrigible. XD

I used to really like using my special gold bookmark I bought at Soka University a couple of years ago, but I eventually stopped using it because it slipped out of my book one day, and I was afraid I would eventually lose it. I still use it from to time, but only for books I read at home.

I really don't like "dog-earing" my pages because it feels like I ruined them. It's funny because I write on my books a lot. I'm an English major, so I like to interact with my books (a lot of the books I read are classics, so it's actually quite helpful to prepare for English classes that have those books on their reading list). I also go through my books and underline words I don't know and write the definition on the margins, so I don't really need bookmarks because I can tell what I was reading before based on which pages I marked.

Before this post gets too long, I would like to say receipts make great bookmarks! I usually have a lot of them (especially receipts from the library), and I can write little notes on them whenever I find something interesting I want to jot down. Plus, I have the worst luck with pens, so I tend to wipe off any of the ink that's leaking out of the pen with the receipt before it gets a chance to blot on the page of my book.

I don't like to dog-ear my pages. I'm the type that can't stand to bend or mark up a book. I used to always use a bookmark, and then my 2 year old would come along and helpfully remove it for me. Can't leave bookmarks sitting around in books, you know! ;)

These days I use the Nook app on my phone, which of course keeps my place for me. It's so convenient since I always have my phone with me anyway, and now that means always having, not only my current book, but a whole bookstore in my pocket!

I went Borders yesterday and picked up some of those magnetic bookmarks. I have great hopes for these, maybe, I can get out of my terrible habit.

I collect bookmarks and try to use one that pertains to the book. For example, I used one that advertised the circus when I read Water for Elephants.

I also use postcards that people send me, and a lot of book stores and even restaurants give away bookmarks, not to mention the library. I don't use the McDonald's bookmarks very much because they make me want a coffee! HA!

I use a post-it note to mark where I left off reading if it's in the middle of the page.

I would never dog-ear pages. I'm from the generation that was taught that's a big no no.

Never knew that McD's gave out bookmarks. Do they have scratch and sniff ones that smell like french fries? YUM!

Lisa wrote: "Never knew that McD's gave out bookmarks. Do they have scratch and sniff ones that smell like french fries? YUM!"

No, but they have pictures of their delicious coffees and are hard to resist....a genius of a marketing tool!

No kidding! Might have to avoid those!

I've always used business cards for bookmarks. Every company I've worked for has given me a box of 250 business cards and since I rarely have a use for them I started using them as bookmarks. I definately don't dog-ear or lay on open book face down. Just the thought of that makes me cringe.

That is actually a great idea Jim. Business cards are a perfect size and good advertising if you happen to leave it somewhere!

I just bought the cutest little magnetic puppy bookmarks at Borders the other day. Much cuter than the dopey Target receipt "bookmark" that I had stuffed between my pages.

Amazing what you can pick up from Borders nowadays!

I also got magnetic bookmarks from Borders with an m.
The bookmark I had been using and liked the best came with a giveaway book.

Lately I have been using postcards I picked up during the summer to mark my books.

Amy wrote: "Lately I have been using postcards I picked up during the summer to mark my books."

That will be nice during the winter to remember all the fun, warm places that you went. Nice idea!

I use bookmarks. I'm got loads of them. A bookstore here in Dublin always leaves out free bookmarks all over the store for customers to take so when I'm in there I always grab up dozens of them. :)

I too use bookmarks as I'm hugely fussy about my books and like them to stay in excellent condition :-). Most bookmarks I own were bought during my holidays; nice leather ones for hardcover books or thin ones for paperbacks. Some of my bookmarks were given to me by friends who know I read a lot :-) and a penpal of mine recently sent me a bookmark she made out of a greeting card, quite a beautiful one. Which bookmark I decide to use depends both upon the book and upon my mood.

I hoard em, make em, love em. I really like finding forgotten ones in old books.

Lisa wrote: "Ok, I will admit it, I have a very bad habit of not using a bookmark when I read books. I usually, lay them on the couch with the pages facing the couch*gasp*. Yes, I know that it breaks the spi..."

I was raised in a house which had a lot of books and treated them very well. So I learned very early that one always closed the book when leaving it, with or without a bookmark depending on whether one intended to return to it, but always closed, and reshelved as soon as one was finished with it.

Plus, from my earliest memories onward we went to the local library every Tuesday after supper (it was a small volunteer community library and only open a few nights a week), and to mistreat a library book was a crime only slightly less serious than setting the house on fire (so I never did either).

I think a lot of how one treats books depends on one's earliest teaching. Those habits, whether good or bad, are hard to break!

@Everyman
I fully agree! Even as a toddler, my mum taught me to treat books with love and care and I've always done so.