reply to u/Low-Appointment-2906 at https://www.reddit.com/r/books/comments/17pitv9/when_does_annotating_books_become_a_distraction/

Through the middle ages, bookmakers would not only leave significant margins for readers to annotate, but they also illuminated books and included drolleries which readers in the know would use in conjunction with the arts of memory (from rhetoric) to memorize portions of texts more easily. I strongly suspect this isn't what booktokkers are doing; their practice is likely more like the sorts of decorative #ProductivityPorn one sees in the Bullet journal and journaling spaces. It's performative content creation.

Those interested in refining their practices of "reading with a pen in hand", continuing the "great conversation" or having "conversations with their texts" might profitably start with Mortimer J. Adler's essay: “How to Mark a Book” (Saturday Review of Literature, July 6, 1941). In his 1975 KCET series How to Read a Book, which was based on their book of the same name, Adler mentioned to Charles Van Doren that he would buy new copies of books so he could re-annotate them without being distracted by his older annotations.

Some have solved the problem of distracting annotations by interleaving their books so they've got lots of blank space to write their notes. It's a rarer practice now, but some publishers still print Bibles with blank pages every other page for this practice. Others put their annotations and notes into commonplace books or on index cards for their card index/zettelkasten.

As some have mentioned, friends and lovers through time have shared books with annotations as a way of sharing their thoughts. George Custer and his wife Elizabeth did this with Tennyson.

If you're interested in annotating digitally online, perhaps check out Hypothes.is where I've seen teachers and students using social annotation to read and make sense of books [example]. I've also seen groups of people use this tool for hosting online book groups/clubs.

If you're in it for fun, you might appreciate:

• https://archaeologyofreading.org/
• https://booktraces-public.lib.virginia.edu/
• My digital annotations on annotation

And those wishing to delve more deeply into the history and power of annotation might look at: Kalir, Remi H., and Antero Garcia. Annotation. The MIT Press Essential Knowledge Series. MIT Press, 2019. https://mitpressonpubpub.mitpress.mit.edu/annotation.

Good luck annotating! 📝

Perhaps an interesting example of a murder board for J.D. Connor?