What do you use to mark your place while reading? Do you have a definite preference? Do you use bookmarks, paper, or (gasp) turn down the pages? If you use bookmarks, do you have a favorite one?I have to begin by admitting that, yes, I do sometimes fold down the page corner to mark my spot. This is obviously not a very nice thing to do to a poor helpless book, especially a hardcover library book with the thick paper that will hold onto the memory of that crease forever.
My other less than perfect methods of not losing my place in a book have included: placing a tissue I have on hand between the pages (and with my all-seasonal allergies I always have a tissue on hand), leaving the book open face-down on some flat surface which in it's own way is as cruel a thing to do to the spine as turning down a page is to the paper.
However, before the book lovers of the world gather an angry mob with fiery torches to punish me for the error of my ways - let me be clear that I prefer to use a bookmark of some sort and have done so for my entire reading life.
The Erie County library system that provided 99% of the books that I read up until I moved to California had these cards in the backs of all the books that they would stamp with the return date. Ah, stamping a return date - already it sounds like such an antiquated notion. However, these cards were great. On one side they had the numbers 1 and 2 and on the other side 3 and 4. Using these cards I was able to devise a system wherein if I left off on the left hand page I would place the card so that the 1/3 was sticking up, and if I was on the right hand page, the the 2/4 would be up.
It was a wonderful system also because in essence every book came with it's own bookmark, but also a little pocket at the back of the book to keep the bookmark in while I was reading so it didn't get lost in the couch cushions, bedsheets, pool water, or wherever else I happened to be that day.
Since then I have struggled to find another system that works as well. Sometimes I'll use the little printout receipt that the library gives me when I check books out. Sometimes I'll use some odd scrap of paper that happens to be lying around. And sometimes I'll find a misplaced bookmark and actually remember to use that.
Lately though I have been using this bookmark that I just received from my MIL (this is the librarian MIL of the Barnes and Noble gift card who I've mentioned before) as part of my Christmas gift.
And as luck would have it, I also received an excellent book mark from one of my crit partners during our Secret Santa this past year. As you can see, it is currently marking a page of a reference book (also part of the same SS gift) on my cluttered bookshelf.
What about you? Tell me in the comments if you're a book marker, page folder, or have some other odd method for marking your page?
