Book Blogger Hop: When reading a book, do you use a bookmark or...

The Question is:

When reading a book, do you use a bookmark to mark your place in the book, or do you just fold over the top corner of the page? 

My Answer:

I own a couple of nice bookmarks but I never use them. I can never find them when I want them and typically I use whatever is to hand to mark my page: scrap paper, receipts, post-it notes, candy wrapper, hair grips... I'm not fussy. If nothing 'suitable' is within easy reach then I'll fold down a corner.

Yep.

I said it and I do it. 

I'll fold down the corners of pages.

I deface books with self-inflicted creases to their precious pages.

Back in school, for English class, I'd take a highlighter pen and highlight favourite passages.

To the standards of most bookworms, I am a monster who doesn't deserve to own a precious pretty book.

 

I don't care if I crease the spine of a paperback to stripey hell.

I'll read and eat and have been known to accidentally drop pasta (with tomato based sauces) on a page and not care... Well care too much.

I carry them haphazardly in my bag and have more than a few books that have pen marks, or have the edges of their pages crinkled because of water, or stained with some random substance like blackcurrant juice that leaked out my son's drinks bottle...

I take a lot of care with other people's books. I take care of library books. However, if the book is mine I do as I please and that means that shit happens.

I don't buy many paper books anymore, I typically stick to kindle, but for me a book that looks like it's lived - creases, scuffs and imperfections - is gorgeous. I don't want a library full of books that look like they've never been read. What is the point in that? As long as a book is never damaged to a point where it has no cover, missing pages or pages that can't be read for one reason or another, then I don't care about things like folding the corners of my pages because life is too short to constantly hunt for a bookmark.