Do you use a tasseled kind of bookmark you'd get at a bookstore (with inspirational, library-based phrases on one side and the bold font address of the bookstore that sold it to you, on the other)? The ribbon that is stitched into the spine of the leather-bound books? I use a post-it note and write down words that I don't know or phrases that I wish to remember. This is one of the greatest things about the Kindle app, on my phone!!! Touch the word and it looks it up, instantly. When I go back to reading paper books, I will instinctively reach to touch the page, when I come across a word that is new. Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child use a LOT of words I have never seen before and cannot work out via any of the very few languages I happen to be able to read Also lists of things I need to do, after work, go on the post-it. It is fun to re-read a book and find my old bookmark. I can tell when I read the book last by what was on the bookmark. "Buy fireworks at reservation" -must have been just before the 4th. "Fix headlight" -just after I got pulled over "Shovel driveway" "Mortgage" "Weed garden" Used to be (and I still do it if I lose my bookmark) I'd just look at the page number and use a mnemonic to remember it but that's much slower than a bookmark and I have to actually use my brain which, if I'm at work, I try never to do. "We don't pay you to think." "Sweet. I'm'a stop doin' it." What a relief that moment was. What's your bookmark?
Train tickets, usually. I'm using an index card in the book I'm currently reading. I was giving a presentation about fiction writing on the day I started reading it.
I use conventional paper ones, usually garnered from book festivals, book stores, etc. My husband has always used beer mats!
I use the receipt of the book as a bookmark. Post-it notes are a great idea though - I should try that and write down phrases I like or words I don't know.
Funny you should ask that today. I am, at the present, in the process of making a bookmark because I don't have one handy for the book I'm reading and, instead of the ubiquitous Post-it (which, btw, is one of the world's greatest inventions and one which I have used on many occasions!) I decided to build a strip bookmark and laminate it. No tassels or biblical, spiritually uplifting quotes, or bookstore ads just download some writerly relevant images and motivational quotes on a strip of cardstock, laminate and keep between the pages. Right now, there is a piece of fabric to mark my place. At home I have several very nice bookmarks but they are either mementos of people in my past or special events in my life which are so lovely they are on display or they are made of metal and warp the pages too badly. I have a special favorite, a brass copy of a Frank Lloyd Wright stained glass that I used to use until I started misplacing while I was reading and I feared to lose it. Ordinarily, though, my favorite bookmark is whatever is handy and flat enough to served the purpose (like the electric bill that almost didn't get paid! lol)
I have often used whatever is handy -- frequently those little cards from magazines that ask you to subscribe -- I used to have those around a lot, so they were convenient when I started a book and realized I needed a bookmark. I used to have a few purchased bookmarks, but they can get lost easily - especially if I finish a book and don't start one immediately. My favorite bookmarks are the ones that bookstores give away for free. Amazon used to give away bookmarks, so I used to use those a lot. They don't seem to do that anymore. My local bookstore gives them away when you purchase a book, so these days, most often I use those.
I have a big, thick leather bookmark that I use for my main book, a little silk 'book worm' mark that I use for the light reading book, which is usually something like Dickens or a collection of poems. Other than that I use anything I can find, rulers, receipts, those little paper marks that I'm always given every time I buy a new book; or I use the silk strips that comes with good Hardbacks. I like those things, they often fit the 'feel' of one of those weighty, table books I own quite nicely. I'm talking about the type of hardbacks published by Barnes and Noble, with the leather, and silk, and gold trim pages.
Uuuuuhhhh! I hate this! I can't stand physically harming a book. I want my books to appear exactly the same as they did before I started reading them - no bent spines, no dog ears, no crinkled pages, no underlines, no bent pages.
I'm largely the same, but it depends on the book really. And how I feel about it. Some books I think look better when they are look 'distressed' and often-handled and some I like to take good care of.
Funny side-story, [MENTION=2124]Lemex[/MENTION]. You may know I once worked at an antiques auction. When we would get lots of "decorator books" (antique hardbacks of no particularly unique value) One of the jobs I was tasked with was to refit them with those little silk strips. We had a box of antique lace trim in a million colors, styles and qualities, so they fit the books well as they were old, faded and generally not new looking. I was an ace at finding bits that were faded next to bits that weren't so that the loop that stuck out at the top looked like it had been sun-bleached while the part in the book looked more vivid.
I have two special book marks that I use one has my grandmother's picture on it, the other one has my grandfather's picture on it.
And then suckers like me, with more money than sense, came along and bought them. Seriously though, that sounds amazing. That's the sort of job I would love to at least have a go at. Must admit, I'm a big lover of antiquarian books. I have a few of them myself, and just adore the whole aura they have. Actually, glad you wrote this as I might have to ask you about this sort of thing in a bit, then, as I have a small pocket book where the strip as separated from back, and would like to know the best way to reattach it.
I prefer longer, straight-edged bookmarks so that I can underline words I don't know. Later, I do a sweep of the previous chapter and write in the definitions atop the page.
[MENTION=11130]Yoshiko[/MENTION] YES! I love when train and airplane tickets slip out of the back of books when I go to reread them.
I use anything handy, like the others mentioned - receipts, notes, those handy cardboard magazines subscription ads, a recipe card, even a chocolate bar wrapper. I miss the old days of buying a Garfield bookmark with a purple yarn tassel. My mom is notorious for dog earring ( argggh! ) and worse - tenting. *shivers* I can hear the poor book spine crack.
That reminds me that I went to open a notepad today and found two €5 notes and a boarding pass tucked away in the back pages. Euros aren't the currency where I live and I haven't been out of the country since March. I buy a lot of used books from Amazon and it annoys me when the previously owner obviously bent the corners of pages in order to remember their place. :/
I use this random leather one I found around my house, it's nicely reflective and it's from Grenada, I assume, considering it has the map and coat of arms of that country xD
from childhood, i used to use anything that was handy, including 'nice' regular bookmarks i'd pick up here and there... in later years, as i've been reading only 'used' books, i've taken to the easier method of turning down a corner, if there's no book jacket i can use the flap for, to mark my stopping page... and yes, i know lots of you look down on dog-earing [as i once did], but they're my own books [i'd never do it to another person's, or library book] and so i see no problem with doing so...
As far as the dog-earing, I don't think that it is somehow immoral or anything for people to do it to their own books. It's just my own personal hang-up that I like my books to remain in pristine condition. I have a hard time lending my books out for that reason.
I use a sticky not, too, but not as a mean of note-taking. Just because it's convenient...it doesn't fall out while you're walking around with the book. You open the book and there it is, stuck to the page.
