For years I kept a separate notebook for reading notes. The book on one side, the notebook on the other, and a discipline of writing a paragraph after every chapter. I built up a stack of notebooks. I almost never went back to them.

I switched to writing in the margins of the books themselves. Pen marks. Brackets. A few words at the top corner of a page. Nothing intended to be re-read.

Two things changed.

First, I started actually re-reading the books. Margin notes are an invitation to flip back through. A separate notebook is a separate object you have to remember exists. The book pulls you back to itself.

Second, my notes got shorter and better. A separate notebook tempted me into paraphrase, which is mostly a way of pretending you understood. A margin note has space only for the thing you actually want to say back to the page. It forces compression.

The cost: my books look more lived-in. I no longer worry about resale value. They have stopped being objects and become tools.

Related: Margin notes, Reading in seasons.

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