advice in the form of graffiti
POSTSCRIPT: The books I own are an ink-splotched mess. Especially the nonfiction, which I annotate as I go. (With fiction, I only annotate on second reading.) It turns them from generic copies into personalized editions: I can flip through Song of Solomon or Six Memos for the Next Millennium (as I did this weekend, while my daughters locked each other in loving tackles), and experience a kind of accelerated rereading, a version annotated with my own prior thoughts. It makes them vastly more useful to me — and more meaningful, too.
Anyway, I hope people are doing the same with my books. It’s possible that my publisher undercuts this by producing such gorgeous, high-quality objects. But even so, you have my permission. Bring your pen! (Unless it’s a library book, which like a campsite, should be left as clean as you found it.)
Math with Bad Drawings 
I love this. You learn so much more when you make notes in books.
I deface my books too. I feel like it’s not only a way for me to digest the information but to have a conversation with the author, myself later, and whoever may pick it up later.
I notice you mentioned song of solomon.
Are you a Christian?
I thought he meant the novel by Toni Morrison: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Song_of_Solomon_(novel)
You’re probably right. I had not even thought of that.
Yes, I meant the Toni Morrison novel!
Wow, I never thought about it this way.
I used to prefer digital books over paper ever since digital books became easily available on mobile devices. They weigh nothing and take up no space, it costs nothing to take any number of them in your carry-on, it’s OK to read them while eating and drinking, the text is searchable, the ToC and index are full of hyperlinks, and your current position is automatically remembered.
I understand the appeal of beautifully made paper books, especially illustrated ones, with stylish covers and dust jackets. I do own a careful selection of paper books (including yours) and treat them as collector’s items — kept on shelves because they are beautiful objects that are a pleasure to own. But I would never doodle on the pages of a collector’s item.
Your post gave me a surprising new perspective on book ownership. Rather of seeing pen markings in a book as damage, you see it as useful annotations that make the book more useful to you than it started out. Of course, there are digital equivalents for handwritten notes, but these aren’t universal, there is a different workflow on every platform, portability issues etc. Nothing beats the simplicity of a pen.
I cut mine up to create a bulletin board display in my classroom.
This was so interesting! I never thought of drawing pictures along with annotations!