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the amazing Lorenzo Landini's avatar

I love this breakdown, particularly the articulation that reading should feel like dialogue, which is something I internalized somewhere but never thought to encapsulate quite so well. I used to do pen & highlighter when I was in school, now generally just a nice pen, and usually that for poetry or “great” fiction.

the underlining / commenting practice also leads me to treasure the books themselves as precious objects because they become time capsules of who I was when I encountered (and was usually changed by) the story and the words. only struggle is I’m trying to buy fewer new books to support my local library 😫

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Ahmed Abdelhamid's avatar

Wow, Super useful

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Hira Syed's avatar

Love this! I used to be of the “no annotation” camp but recently highlighted while reading for a book club and it really helped me engage with the content. Will be applying these techniques InshaAllah. Any advice/tips for Kindle annotations? Highlighting is great on kindle but the on screen keyboard not so much.

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N.P's avatar

I love these tips. Using these currently for a book I just started reading.

Question: how to deal with over highlighting. I find myself overdoing it and its mot useful. I’m making margin notes and using sticky notes this time but still highlighting so much!!!

Is there a question you ask yourself to decide whether something is truly worth highlighting?

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Saffana's avatar

yes! the question is - would future me thank previous me once she reads it? Would it make sense as a stand alone piece? In accumulation, I enjoy picking up a book I read previously because I can literally read the highlights... heh. So I find myself being very selective with the highlighter now. (I think I've been burned too many times also by the over-highlighting of previous me - so current me learnt what really sets the bar)

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