File under First-World Problems.
From BookRiot:
My partner and I have been together, more or less, for fourteen years. In that time, I have learned all sorts of odd things about him– some of which are charming, some of which are kind of gross (because ew, boys), and some of which are probably pretty normal. However, only one of his weird idiosyncrasies stresses me the eff out: the man doesn’t use bookmarks. Ever.
I don’t mean that he avoids fancy, expensive magnetic bookmarks or tries to avoid free advertising for the local indie bookstore by refusing their giveaway bookmarks at the register. I don’t even mean that he refuses to dog ear his pages or won’t soil a book by using a discarded receipt or business card in his novel. I mean exactly what I say: the man doesn’t use anything as a book mark. Ever.
His logic is kind of sound, I guess. According to him, if he can’t remember where he was in the book, he shouldn’t be reading there. So he will flip backwards through the book until he remembers a key plot point or, in the case of non-fiction, important fact. On one hand, this feels like a pure way to read– it ensures that he really and truly pays attention to all the plot points and arguments made in a given book. On the other hand, ZOMG that is ridiculous! Not every single plot point is important! What if you remember one thing but not something else? Do you go back to the last point where you can remember everything that happened up to that point? What if you read a spoiler or a magazine article and then you think you remember a thing but actually you’re remembering it from a different source. Clearly, this is a manifestly absurd way to manage your reading life.
Link to the rest at BookRiot
He probably moonlights as one of those waiters who never writes anything down.
I’ve never needed a bookmark. I always seemed to be able to find my place within about 5-10 seconds in the paper days.
My husband and I try to use bookmarks. But our youngest always helpfully (from his point of view) removes them, forcing us to exercise our memory of where we left off. It’s for our own good, of course. We’ll thank him later.
Methinks Ms Ashley Brown-Murphy is showing a little bit of CDO. (That’s like OCD, but with the letters in the right order. 😉 )
If it works, I don’t care. 🙂 For me, I use bookmarks because I have probably 100+ books scattered around the house that I’ve started and I’m positive I’m going to finish some day and I don’t want to waste time reading words I’ve already read unless I’m doing it because I desperately want to.
Sometimes I do.
Most times I don’t.
Last year I finally finished a book I had started reading a few years before. Picked it up right where the bookmark was on page 300-something. I liked it.
I’m just too easily distracted and I always feel like I have to be in the right mood for any particular book. Took a while to get back to that mood, I guess. 😀
Ebooks have been hard on me when it comes to this. Out of sight, out of mind, unfortunately. I finish even fewer books now that I have so many ebooks because I never remember to go back to them. The unfinished books just get lost in the sea of books I have on my devices.
I never use/used bookmarks when I read paper books. I was taught by some teacher never to dogear, and I just never got in the habit of using something for a bookmark. I just glanced at the bottom of the page when I stopped reading, noted the page number, and started there next time.
That’s probably a more useful way to do it, if you’ve got a brain that remembers numbers well. I don’t. At all. And when the numbers keep changing (as they do when you’re remembering which page you were on the last time you read, as opposed to the time before that), forget about it. Now if pages were given names instead of numbered, I’d have a better chance. “Let’s see, where was I? Oh yes, page Reginald.”
What bugs me is having dozens of bookmarks – I make them out of my favourite greeting cards – but never being able to find them and ending up using supermarket dockets or whatever to mark my place.
If this is his habit that most gets on her nerves, she’s got a very good man.
Me, I’d just be happy my SO is reading at all, never mind using bookmarks.
Growing up, I’d just memorize what page number I was on. I regularly kept track of 5+ books at a time.
I lost the habit with reason—suffice to say that leaving overt evidence of the accuracy of my memory was unsafe—but that no longer applies. I’ve lately been considering resurrecting the habit. Most of what I read are e-books, though, so there’s not much point. I’m amusing myself by studying languages, instead. [shrug]
I would not get along well with the writer of that article, though. So your partner doesn’t use a bookmark. Their prerogative.
I do the same. It was easier to remember the page number as a kid though, I guess my brain was more spry. Or perhaps I got read in longer blocks back then, so it was less similar numbers.
But I have to ask, why did reading psychology books make you decide that it was something you needed to hide?
My mother’s reaction to my reading her psychology textbooks.
Oh wow. This person would not get on well with me, I guess 🙂 I don’t use bookmarks either. I dabbled in them once, because B&N sold some pretty bookmarks, but I just couldn’t get into them.
If there’s a passage I want to re-read of a book I read years before I can usually remember the general location (beginning, middle, end), and sometimes whether it was on the right or left side of the page.
And like her boyfriend, if I do pick up a book and can’t remember where I left off, I just go back to the point I do remember. But I don’t normally take such long breaks from something I’m reading, so this doesn’t come up often.
Other oddities: I do not crack spines, or write in novels. I will underline in doorstopper history books, reference guides, or the Bible, but that’s about it. The only exception for writing in, or dog-earing novels are when I’m dealing with proof-copies. If she’s into that sort of thing she would go on my list of People Not To Loan Books To 🙂
I have a ton of bookmarks given or purchased that lie around on shelves gathering dust while I forget they exist. Meantime, I grab any piece of paper near me or just turn the book upside down and leave it open at the page I wanted (if it doesn’t damage the book, if it does, I find another way).
What drives me crazy is people writing in or dog-earing MY books. What they do to theirs irritates me a little, but if it’s not my book, it’s not my problem.
@ Meryl
I HATE buying used books that are dog-eared or written in or highlighted. Just finished erasing a bunch of underlines in a library booksale book I bought. TG it was in pencil, nd not ink or highlighter. 🙁
If you need to “mark” something in a book, write on a Post-It Note and put it on the relevant page. Grrr…
I nearly disowned my cousin after he UNDERLINED PASSAGES in my LOTR paperbacks. The ones I’d had since I was 12. I was in my late twenties at the time. Yeah, he came close to being murdalized.
I would vote to acquit you if you had murdalized him 🙂
I don’t use bookmarks. I also don’t forget where I left off. I just… don’t. Never have. I don’t have photographic memory with anything but text but I kind of do there.
How could people forget? I agree, it is weird that other people do. But it does not bother me.
Only time I use bookmarks is if I am going to consult and put down lots of pages continually, like in a research project; or when I have to find certain pages instantly, as with a choirbook for Mass.
If I was that guy, I’d pick up the book, open it 3/4 of the way through, and start reading. Next time, I’d open it at the half-way point, and start reading.
Works perfectly for non-fiction!
I hope she never makes him mad or he’ll take away her bookmarks 🙂
No, I get it. People want the world to make sense, so when someone does something not just different than you do but in a way that fundamentally doesn’t even make sense (to your way of thinking), especially when that person is close and so you constantly see this behavior that defies all logic or sense (by your thinking), yeah, it’s a small irritation that builds over time. I get it.
I’ve always used bookmarks. I’ve even bought several. I didn’t even know some people don’t, and it doesn’t make much sense to me either, but I’m a completionist when it comes to reading, in the sense that I do not habitually skip–or even read in a way that risks accidentally skipping–pages and then consider that I’ve read the book. If I skip or DNF, I do so as a deliberate choice, and I don’t then consider that I’ve “read” the book (generally speaking).
So it’s not really *that* weird for her to have this reaction, although it does imply that she has very few actual problems in her life and should probably learn to let things go for her own health.
“stresses me the eff out”
—————
Why? Why? I don’t understand why it should stress her out that another person who is obviously Not Her does small things Differently Than She Would. Especially since how he tracks his way through a book has zero impact on her life.
Now if he insisted on washing the dishes by having the dog lick them clean, or keeping the catbox on the coffee table, okay, that is something that directly affects her.
It’s much more heinous to replace the toilet roll feeding off the wrong side. Or needing a fan going in the bedroom in order to sleep. Or failing to downsize books in your collection when there are duplicates. Or putting ketchup on your hot dog in lieu of the correct mustard. Or…
I agree with 90% of your comments, but “which is the correct mustard” is a trap question. The answer is obviously “all of them”!
True dat!
Nope. Only Dijon or Grey Poupon.
First world problems for special snowflakes? Her life must be very charming if that’s the only thing she can think of complaining about.
I don’t always use bookmarks with paper books. It’s not that hard to remember where you left off, you know, because I pay attention to what I read. I also only read one book at a time.
Seriously? This is an issue?
I don’t need a bookmark for entertainment reading, because I remember what I’ve read. And approximately where in the book I stopped (half-way, a little, near the end, whatever… enough to flip to and see where I stopped).
I admit, it gets a little bit harder when i’ve got several books started, but it really isn’t that hard to keep track of.
And yeah, it has been a lot easier since ereaders, which will save where you stopped.
Me too. Whenever I use a bookmark it always falls out of the book, so I have to remember where I am anyway. I figured I might as well jump straight to the remembering 🙂
I use the small Post-It notes as bookmarks. I keep them in the front of the book to use when needed. Small, bright colors, sticks to the pages I want to bookmark, and suuper CHEAP! 🙂
Of course, I don’t even need them for Kindle ebooks. Just click in the upper left corner. Also easy to call up the left-hand-side bookmark list and click. I do go through the list every so often and delete the old bookmarks that I no longer need.
Works for me.
As long as it doesn’t damage the book (dog-earing) who cares?
I always used a bookmark (pre-ebook days) but my daughter only uses a bookmark about 1/2 the time. That is WEIRD to me. Use one or don’t use one but don’t go both ways!