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Author Topic: bookmarks, anyone?
Corky
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I'm talking about the kind that you put inside the book when you put it down (for however long), so you can find your place when you come back later and pick the book up to resume reading.

Do you really need a bookmark? I've gotten so that I can find my place without one, but I use them anyway because I can get back to reading faster if I don't have to take time to find my place.

Also, I like to collect bookmarks--I think they're cool.

And, they are useful promotional tools because the people most likely to pick up bookmarks are people who read and who just might buy the book promoted on the bookmark.


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Marva
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I heard about an author creating bookmarks and passing them out at various book fairs and conventions. It seems a good thing for writers to do. I started designing my bookmarks. Now, I'll just have to find someplace to hand them out.

Oh, yes. My bookmark for my own use is a lovely leather one given to me as a gift.


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Giskard
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Nah, I usually know pretty well where I was last, and if I don't it's likely because I dozed off, and then skimming a bit til something seems reminicant isn't a bad thing I find.
I generally find bookmarks annoying for some reason. Though, I have alot.

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Ray
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I always lose my bookmarks, so I stopped using them. About the only time I feel I need them is if I'm reading a hardcover that belongs to somebody else. Otherwise, I'll dog-ear the page I'm on or set it down open-face down. I prefer reading paperbacks for this reason; they're cheaper and I don't feel bad trashing them.

Of course, paperbacks also last longer than hardcovers do around me, no matter how well I treat the hardcovers or how bad I treat the paperbacks. Go figure.


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Beth
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For Christmas, my sister sent me some fancy little bookmark-type things from Levenger. They're little metal triangles that you slip over the top of the page. I like those and never lose them.

I also like to use the tiniest sticky notes, like the ones you use to indicate where someone needs to sign a document.


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Alethea Kontis
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Bookmarks? Absolutely.
I have lots of cool, nifty, bright and shiny bookmarks.

They're in a box somewhere.

To mark my place I use:
post-its
ripped-off pieces of paper
ripped-off pieces of toilet paper
business cards
magazine blow-ins
paper clips
...any one of a number of things that keep me from dog-earing the pages.

There are two kinds of bibliophiles: the people who love their books, and the people who LOOOOOVE their books.

I am in that first batch of people.


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arriki
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I'm afraid I LOVE bookmarks. A used bookstore here in town used to sell them five for a dollar. Garfield, Babylon 5, cute dogs, Michael Whelan pictures, all sorts. And, that cheap, I have bunches of them where ever I normally sit to read.

[This message has been edited by arriki (edited September 26, 2006).]


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Avatar300
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I use my receipt as a bookmark. This means I'm almost never without one. And when I read a book for the second time I often have the original bookmark.

It's fun to pull out a book I haven't read for awhile and be reminded how long I've owned the book. At least for me.


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LPMcGill
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I've never used a bookmark, or anything to mark my page, something that has always seemed to baffle friends and family, especially since I tend to read multiple books at once.
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Chris V
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My current bookmark is an old chopstick sleeve wrapper. Been using it for the past 3 novels (I actually found it sitting inside the first of those three from the last time I tried reading it.) Before that I was using the bookstore giftcard I used to buy the book. And I've been known to use horrible things like Q-Tips for bookmarks. I've done the receipt thing too, but I generally will use anything I can find that's small enough to close the book around.

Once I'm done reading most books get uber compressed in my book box so I'm not overly concerned about their deformed shape.. Q-Tips are horible for that :P


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Robert Nowall
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I'll use pretty much anything for a bookmark. Right now I usually peel paper towels off the roll, fold them, and voila! instant bookmark. Other things pop up in my older books...old standard mail, receipts, Kleenex, scrap paper, even occasional dollar bills. And sometimes even real bookmarks.

Occasionally I use a piece of toilet paper straight off the roll for a bookmark---when you're communing with the commode, your options are limited---but the paper doesn't hold up that well. Still, sometimes I pick up a book I bought ten or twenty years ago, find an old piece of toilet paper between the pages, and ponder how it earned semi-immortality rather than meet the fate of its brothers who went down the tubes...


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franc li
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I'm watching children a lot while I read lately, so I have a hard time finding my spot on a page, and I may only get a paragraph or two by the time I've found my spot and started reading before the next interruption. So the little post-its are a definite thought.
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Lynda
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What a fun topic! And I had no idea those advertising cards in magazines were called "blow ins" - that's what I use a lot. If I'm reading a book I'm STUDYING and want to mark a lot of pages to re-read later, I'll rip the subscription card from the magazine into strips or chunks or whatever and use those. That's the only good use for those cards, right? I do have some very pretty bookmarks, but I can't find them - they're marking places in books I want to refer back to at some point.

I have heard of authors giving away bookmarks and plan to do that myself once I have a need for them! I think that's a great idea. I know some authors autograph them, too. I may do that for some of them - who knows? Somebody might actually WANT that someday! heehee.

Lynda


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Inkwell
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I refrain from using bookmarks. Why? I lose them, the larger ones damage the spines of cheaply-bound books, they fall out of the books, and...um...I lose them! I guess I've trained myself to memorize page numbers (I don't know why, but dog-eared pages border on blasphemy for me). Now it's gotten to the point that I can be reading five books (give or take) simultaneously and keep track of my page numbers in all of them.

And I'm the math idiot of the family. Go figure. Maybe I'm like Rain Man.

"Def-def-definitely good...yeah...yeah. Page 246...246."


Inkwell
-----------------
"The difference between a writer and someone who says they want to write is merely the width of a postage stamp."
-Anonymous


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englshmjr18
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i knew a girl once who bit the page she stopped on.

anyway, i've lost every bookmark i've ever owned. paper clips work smashingly, as do those triangle things. though i'm still paranoid about losing them.

edited to add that junk mail possibly justifies its existence through bookmarking. and for separating cups from the tables you put them on.

[This message has been edited by englshmjr18 (edited September 27, 2006).]


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tlmorganfield
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Looking over my rows of books, I appear to be a receipt-person as well (though this might stem from the fact that I worked at a bookstore and if you wanted to bring your own book to read on your breaks or lunch hour, you needed to make sure you always had the receipt for it, incase a manager asked to see it.). I do have quite a few bookmarks, most of them old Star Trek ones from my teens. The last one I actually bought was this cute little blue plastic octopus that sits atop your page like a paper clip, but I don't use him because I find it annoying having to attach him to the page. I'm using an old piece of junk mail I found sitting on my desk for the book I'm reading right now. I've even used rejection letters I had laying around.

It drives me crazy when people fold the pages to mark their places, and yeah, I had a momentary feeling of indignation at the biting the pages bit.


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Robert Nowall
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I was going through some old James Tiptree paperback collections the other day, and found, as a bookmark, an old "Star Wars" baseball card. I'm afraid my only thought was...what was it worth?
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Pyre Dynasty
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I use the Ace of Spades for novels, the Joker for short stories, Darth Vader's Lightsaber (in card form, from some Starwars game) for books on writing, and a picture of Norton from the Honeymooners for churchy books. I couldn't tell you why.
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autumnmuse
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I don't use bookmarks typically but I do buy a lot of used books, and have come across some really interesting things that other people used to mark their place.

A few weeks ago I found a postcard sent from the front lines during WWII from a soldier to his sweetheart, explaining that he and his best mate had gotten injured and would be coming home via a New York hospital. That was awesome!

I've found photos, receipts, handwritten notes, recipes, pieces of old newspapers, and other interesting little tidbits.

And I occasionally come across something I stuck in a book when I was a teen. Back then I sometimes tried to use bookmarks, but I've since given up. Too much hassle. I just remember the page number or set the book partially open (never to the point of cracking the spine, and I never set anything on top of an open book). Half the time I just start flipping till it looks familiar, and I can find my place pretty quickly.


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Corky
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My grandmother used to really scold me when I put books down with the pages open to save my place. She said that when people do that, the characters in the book try to get out.

My grandmother used to say a lot of other strange things, too.


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Inkwell
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As to finding things in used books...I once bought a 1st edition of Tom Clancy's Hunt for Red October at a book sale for 25 cents or so (lucky me!). After getting the book home and cracking it open, a picture fell out. In the black and white photo, two naval officers were standing in what looked like a compartment of a ship (or a basement with many utility pipes overhead).

One officer had a grin on his face, and was holding the very book I held in my hand. Apparently, judging by the expression on the other man's face, they'd snapped this picture upon giving the book as a gift. It was an intruiging find...simply because the picture's story was so clear-cut.

Too bad I can't find that picture. Its disappearance still drives me nuts.


Inkwell
-----------------
"The difference between a writer and someone who says they want to write is merely the width of a postage stamp."
-Anonymous


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Robert Nowall
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Oh, yeah. In my career handling used books (and for a time running a used paperback store), I've found lots of stuff like that, things that looked like things somebody wouldn't want to lose, that were probably handy when a bookmark was needed, then forgotten sometime later. Pictures not the least of it.

As for Inkwell's picture of two naval officers holding up a book...sounds worthy of a story of its own.


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Beth
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In one book I was reading (about squid, I think) I found a piece of paper that said:


Unfasten seat belt
Open window
Get out


I would love to know what that's all about. Why did someone need to write down those steps?


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Dzire
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I love my books and I love my bookmark.
I made it myself and I always use it in the book I'm currently reading, if I stop for what ever reason there is and start reading a new book, I'll mark the page with a simple post-it and take my bookmark into the new book...
As I said I made it myself..it's the favourite sentece out of my favourit book: The enemy's gate is down...
Here's a picture of it... http://www.flickr.com/photos/10898379@N00/

I cut it out of black adhensive film and put it onto a piece of transparency...I LOVE IT


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franc li
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I should probably go un-dogear my copy of Speaker for the Dead. The parts I was marking seemed very important to me at the time, but I don't think I'm going to actually do with them what I wanted to.
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