The Little Guide To Your Well-Read Life

N.B. This is a how-to that will only get better with your help

It can be a polarizing question: Do you write in the books you own? Some people do and some don't. Emotions often run high in both camps as to the usefulness and rectitude of their divergent positions.

For those who are Preservationists and don't write in books, we understand your position and salute you. Because of your abstinence, future readers will enjoy your unadulterated books.

We also understand Footprint Leavers, and it is to you writers in books that this message is aimed.

As a Footprint Leaver, you know how writing in books can aid your understanding and retention as you carry on a dialog with the author. We would like to assist you in that dialog with this online edition of our Helpful Reader's Marks for Masterly Marginalia. And we're hoping you'll add some of your own.

We searched high and low in the mid-90s, and to our surprise found that no such list of reader's marks existed, so we decided to make our own. We borrowed some from proofreaders' marks, such as paragraph ( ¶ ). Others we lifted from Latin abbreviations, such as "that is" (i .e.) and "compare with" (c. f.). Others came from mathematics, such as , the symbol for "therefore". One even comes from Winston Churchill's handwritten letters—his pithy version of  "very" as vy.

We put our collection of Reader's Marks in the covers of some of our notebooks and in a bookmark that we included in packages. Since we published this list, we've come across more shorthand invented by creative Footprint Leavers.

Peter Brown, attorney, author and consummate reader, uses an   to indicate an anecdote, and to indicate quotation. (He'll underline the passage, too.) Later, he'll go back to reinforce his memory and will employ both in his conversation and writing.

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Throughout history, readers have penned notes in the margins. Some of these have been more than just personal observations, valuable as these are to the reader. They became a way of formulating new truths and passing on that knowledge.

As Owen Gingerich details in his ironically titled The Book That Nobody Read (Walker and Company, 2004), other astronomers did, in fact, read Nicolaus Copernicus's sixteenth-century work De revolutionibus, in which he posited that the earth and not the sun was the one making all those revolutions. The astronomers' annotations proved as revolutionary as Copernicus's theory: these notes in the margins actually helped to advance the acceptance of the theory among scientists.

Do you have your own favorite marks? Perhaps you use symbols or abbreviations from your profession. Are there some email abbreviations that are transferable back to handwriting in the margins of books? (Ah, the exquisite irony! The @ symbol, after all, was in use long before we all got mail.) Please pass your suggestions to us via snail mail to the address below.

For submissions we find particularly useful, clever or funny, we will add them to our evolving list hosted at Levenger.com. We look forward to your notes in the margin!

Levenger
ATTN: Marginalia Maven
420 South Congress Avenue
Delray Beach, FL 33485

Please include your name,  phone and email address in case we need to contact you. Thank you!

Levenger began by selling reading lights, and over the years we've learned a few things that may help you light for long and comfortable reading sessions.

Light for the ages.

Ever notice how children seem to read in the dark? It's not dark for them. When we're young, we don't need as much light as when we're 30. At 60, we need twice the amount of light we did when we were 30. (We just don't notice it since we get older a day at a time.) Give yourself lots more light as you grow older.

Find the correct shoulder to light on.

Position your lamp behind your left shoulder if you're right-handed, and behind your right shoulder if you're left-handed. This way, your hand won't overshadow your words as you write or read.

Banish glare.

Set a small mirror on your page and see if any strong light reflects into your eyes. If so, rearrange things so that the light bounces away instead. This way, you'll avoid fatiguing glare.

Use a dimmer switch.

It gives you another way to control the light level, adjusting it to what you're reading (a stock listing vs. a glossy coffee table book, for example). A dimmer switch is especially helpful for older eyes, since they need more light yet are more sensitive to glare.

Combine direct light with general light.

Except when reading in bed when someone else is sleeping, try to avoid strong contrasts in light levels, which may cause your eyes to strain to adjust from darkness to light. Normally you should light your room generally and then supplement your reading material with direct light.