What are the best (worst?) annotations you've discovered in books?

Message Bookmarked

Bookmark Removed

Not all messages are displayed: show all messages (31 of them)

odd, rather than good. i bought Funeral In Berlin second hand to tide me over on an 11 hour plane ride and towards the end there was one word obliterated - 'Brocks' as in the (old-skool) fireworks manufacturer.

(ha, looking up the spelling i found some pictures and Brocks were based in Hemel Hempstead which is where i bought the book. http://www.cyber-heritage.co.uk/eclipse/twone.jpg )

― koogs (koogs), Friday, 30 April 2004 16:19 (nineteen years ago) link

two weeks pass...

Inside my copy of T.S. Eliot's 'Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats':

I wish I had more sense
Of humour, sometimes
Keeping the sadness at bay
Throwing the lightness on
These things
Laughing it all away....
(Joni Mitchell: "People's Parties")

To Stephen,
with love, thanks & apologies
Love,
Claire / Xx .. . .

― cozen (Cozen), Sunday, 16 May 2004 21:10 (nineteen years ago) link

I once got an Ellroy novel (I think it was White Jazz) that had every swear word crossed out. Inluding blasphemy. It was almost impossibel to read and left me wondering WHY anyone so easily offended would ever consider getting an Ellroy book out. Unless they were on a crusade to stop bad language. Didn't work since my language tinged the air blue after about the tenth page.

― AnankeJones, Friday, 21 May 2004 08:16 (nineteen years ago) link

Maybe that reader should consider getting out the large print versions - I read a Robert B. Parker in LP recently and every swearword was replaced by a row of dashes! I am bit shocked that the publishers of LP editions are censoring in this way - it hardly follows that every visually impaired reader is also unable to handle swearing.

― Archel (Archel), Friday, 21 May 2004 08:46 (nineteen years ago) link

the library copy of Philip Roth's The Facts that I read a few months ago contained a full counter-book. all along the margin of every page some previous reader had written "Come on, Phil! A little maudlin, wouldn't you say?" Or "Boring, boring, boring - where's the sex stuff?" Hard to know what impulse held the guy as he wrote...

― David Elinsky (David Elinsky), Sunday, 23 May 2004 16:26 (nineteen years ago) link

A friend gave me his copy of "Writing Past Dark" with great annotations like: "Her perky lil face annoys me"..."Amazing, she can do a two page rift on peas" (sarcasm)...and on the back cover he's written "i love you just the way you are but love you too much to let you stay that way" which has nothing to do with the book.

bye

― PeanutDuck (PeanutDuck), Sunday, 23 May 2004 16:52 (nineteen years ago) link

eighteen years pass...

In a copy of The Iron Man by Ted Hughes, written in separate pages in red pen vertically upwards next to the gutters:

WWF vs. WCW and ECW. Bras + Panties Match Up at "Invasion"
(Bras spelt Bra?^es (fourth letter scribbled out, with e written above))

HARDCORe Mat^ch Jeff hardy (?) VS Bok Van dam. Winner Bod Van Dam

Tag Math Check Columbo shaun stasjock (?) Vs APA. winers APa. Farooq and Bradshaw

― the man with the chili in his eyes (ledge), Friday, 26 August 2022 11:28 (one year ago) link

You must be logged in to post. Please either login here, or if you are not registered, you may register here.