One small thing I sometimes miss about real paper books is the ability to scribble in the margin. I've done this rarely with fiction books, although I have copied out beautiful quotes, especially when I was younger and still had hopes of achieving lovely handwriting through practice. With history, though, and other books I wanted to note and return to, I underlined, wrote thoughts, and sometimes even doodled. I had no qualms about defacing the books that belonged to me. They were mine, my own possessions to mark up at will, and marginalia has a long history. Some of the old books in my library have notes from generations long past, and what remains are these glimpses into their thoughts from before I was even a twinkle in my father's eye. I treasure those scribbles, some less legible than others. But even simple underlining can illuminate another reader's insights into what the author was saying.
Having switched largely to ebooks - how else could I practically carry a vast library on my person and be able to read anywhere at any time? Paper is simply no longer practical for my primary reading. I am still able to make my own marginal notes, linked to the next, I highlight passages, and I can easy grab quotes to share with social networks when I am moved to it. It's not so easy to see the other readers, although I do have the ability to see what passages others have highlighted many times. I don't know what algorithm dictates the number behind 'many' but it's always interesting to be reading along and see the underlined passage that has caught eyes. As a writer, I look closely at those, curious to see what captured the imagination, and to speculate as to why those words, and how I might replicate that in my own writing.
I can, of course, always bring my own marginalia here - for what that means, which given I can't keep a regular post schedule, isn't much! - and share it with the world. But that's somewhat divorced from the book. It isn't the same as the spidery pencil marks on yellowed and brittle pages I have to photograph and enhance digitally to hopefully be able to read. Those are a tiny window into the past. A form of time-travel, if you will, every forward and never looking back. I like to look back, from whence we came, and use that to guide my own path into the future. Or to reflect on the turns life has taken, if I look at my own margins from teen years through young motherhood into the 'now' which is only a blip on the radar of my entire life, however that will look at the end. I can't predict it, any more than I could have predicted where I would be standing now, from the past stance I jotted offhandedly in the edge of a book page.
Cookbooks are excellent sources of useful marginalia!
I've always written in my books. Especially this one.