I absolutely hate lending out books because people just don't seem to respect them as much as you do. If the book is in really poor condition and it's a really cheap book, I might consider it. But when it comes to the more valuable books, I won't even let me parents or girlfriend touch those. Anyways, to answer the OP's question, I use cheap paper bookmarks.
Whatever is handy. I always have business cards in my wallet, if nothing else is handy. But dog-earing? NEVAH!
i always use the ones that hook over the top of the page and have magnets... im a sucker for losing bookmarks which is why i have these
I oscillate in my use of bookmarks. I use them when the books are really massive, like Peter Hamliton's Night's Dawn trilogy. If not I usually just try to remember the page number. My bookmark is typically a leaf. They're cheap, you just pick up one off the ground and use it. And I often read outside so you can just put it back when you're done with it. The stem of the leaf hangs outside the book, with the rest of it in the book. Works well for me, and the book/leaf came from the same source anyway. In the winter I don't read massive books lol. Also I'm shocked. Dog ears are nothing compared to what I do to my books. A beaten, battered book indicates it's been read. Add that to a bit of weather damage and it looks good to me. My books aren't damaged (well the library sometimes disputes that with me), but they're certainly don't stay perfect after I buy them.
Dog ears for paperbacks. Business car or folded post-it note for hard cover. Sometimes, I'll use one of the flaps of the jacket. Ebooks make it easy.
When I was in high school I used to dog ear pages. [sigh] Now I almost consider books more important than people. If I loan a book, I make sure it's a copy that I do not mind losing because if they keep it and forget who gave it to them, eventually it will end up in the hands of someone who loves it. I also own a crap load of those bookplates and ex-libris plates that can be filled out. They never prevent the borrower from keeping them Two of my ex-girlfriends used to grab the paperback, by one half and wrap the pages around until they curled into a tube. It made me want to scream. I'd have to leave the room because I knew if I stayed, there would be a "domestic disturbance" involving tears, screaming and wailing. I have no idea what her reaction would be, to me acting like that, but it wouldn't be pretty. One guy, at work and I swap books back and forth. Harry Potter books used to come out at midnight. One year I was on the east coast and bought my book while it was still only 9PM, the previous day, back home. I taunted him mercilessly. "It's SOOOO GOOD!!!!" We get each other's book marks too. They are always returned in excellent condition.
I use any piece of scratch paper handy. Though I have a dozen really nice bookmarks right here on my desk. Perhaps I'll start using them. Had an ex-boyfriend who broke me of the dog eared habit years ago.
When my books were still made of paper, I dog-eared. I tend to eat books in one or two large bites, so there was rarely more than one in any of my books.
In high school, when I was stopping biting my fingernails, I started tearing the very tip of the edge off the corner of my paperback pages. I'd chew the little triangle of paper and keep adding more triangles, as I read more pages. Eventually I'd spit out the gum-sized wad of soggy paper and start over. Stupid brain.
I get an Economist every week, and they like to believe I will shill for them to three people with inserts. So bam, instant bookmarks.
At one point, I filled them all out, for a co-worker. He had to move away to put a stop to the junk mail. I experience a complicated emotion. I laugh, while feeling really bad about how far I took it. Others were co-opted into our evil plan. He got free samples of magazines. We said it was fine that the company that we had contacted, shared his information with their sister companies. His name was Joe. That was over twelve years ago. I bet whoever lives there still has a FULL mailbox every day. For a tenant named "Jomo Sekshul"
You, sir, are pure evil. And I think I feel a short story coming on. I use anything I can find as a bookmark. I recently unpacked some books I'd had in storage for about ten years, and I was amazed at the stuff I found in them as bookmarks. Leaves, bills (mostly paid, thank goodness), birthday and Christmas cards, an old library card, a love letter from an ex, a ransom note for a teddy bear (long story), post-its, fliers, coupons, half of a Watchtower pamphlet, and the invitation to one of my cousins' weddings. It was like opening a time capsule.
My bookmarks are literally random things I pick up. I once had a spoon fall out of my book in class because that's what I'd used (but the spoon itself was clean). I'll use pieces of paper, receipts, old homework, current homework, a magazine, a notebook, a straw, A DVD cover, a CD, another book, playing cards, folded over tape, belts, chip clips, paper clips, sheet music, birthday cards, photos, posters... the list is endless
Wau, I stirred up a storm. Yeah, I used to love maintaining my books in pristine conditions. But because many of them get borrowed, and made ugly...I gave up. I still do it once in awhile, when I bought a really beautiful book.
Barnes & Noble's leather bound, gilded paged, wonderful smelling books are just great. And they have the thin, delicate, soft ribbon. The first time you open them is like that burbling noise a new bottle of red wine makes just as you tip it over to pour the first glass. That rapid series of sounds the small bubbles make, entering the new cavern formed by tipping it over. When you open your brand new book, the spine releases some of its tension and it is like it is waking up from hibernation. Just for you. It will never crackle like that again. But the feel of trapping that ribbon between the nail of your index finger and the pad of your middle finger... You trace it down the gap between the pages to lay it in place, before closing the book, which gives you that puff of 'new book smell' that feeds your soul, like dessert at the end of a meal.
in a weird coincidence [?], just minutes after i hit 'post' for my reply, my quirky mail-lady drove up with a subscription offer from the ny'r that included the gift of--guess what? yup, a nifty li'l BOOKMARK!... with 3 of their cutest pet cat cartoons on one side... an omen?... a warning re dogearing?... or....???
Same here. I have certain books I keep pristine. For paperback novels, I don't really care. If I really wanted a perfect copy of one, I'd just go out and buy a second one and never touch it, but apart from nice hardcovers, or other high-quality, special books in my collection, I just don't care that much whether they're dog-eared, or whatever.
We really need a headdesk smiley, don't we? As for me, I have a trusty bookmark that once came with a book token. It's probably ten years old and it's been a fairly constant companion. The day it finally gives up the ghost and dies will be a sad day - it's been with me on so many journeys. I also have a couple of bookmarks from a bookshop in Whitby that live in my 'other' read. Much less used, but no less loved.
