Question about annotating in used books my club passed around

Last month my book club read a mystery novel and we passed around a single used copy to save money. I got it third and found someone had underlined every clue with a pink highlighter. It totally ruined the reveal for me because I saw the highlights before reading the chapters. Do your clubs have rules about marking up books people share or am I just unlucky with my group?

3 comments

3 Comments

ward.kim11d ago

Hmm, I gotta gently push back on the idea that this was just a bad luck situation. You said "someone had underlined every clue with a pink highlighter" - but from my experience in book clubs, that's not really a normal mix-up. In my opinion, that person probably just didn't care or thought they were being helpful. Your club should have a clear rule about no markings at all in shared books, or at least a system where people use sticky notes instead. I've been in groups where we agreed upfront that everyone uses a different color sticky note for their own notes, and then you peel them off before passing it on. It works way better than relying on everyone to just be considerate. So I'd say bring it up at the next meeting, because otherwise you're just leaving it to chance.

hannah32010d ago

Does your group have any kind of book care agreement at all, or is it just an unspoken thing? Because if nobody ever talks about it, you're basically hoping everyone magically knows the rules. Maybe you could suggest a quick 'do we want highlighter or no highlighter' vote at the next meeting to make it official.

allen.iris10d ago

The sticky note thing reminds me of when I was in a craft group and someone used a permanent marker to label all the shared supplies with their initials. We had to have a whole meeting about it. Maybe you could propose a simple system like that where everyone uses a pencil and erases after themselves.