Put down that E-Reader and pick up a pen!

     Read How to Mark a Book by Mortimer Adler here. Adler was the co-founder of the Great Books foundation and published this magnificent essay in 1940. I discovered it through one of about.com's many treasure troves while searching for teaching resources and I'm confident I'll find many more gems like it soon.
     Adler goes to great lengths to persuade his reader that marking up a book with lines, stars, notes and cross references is not an act of mutilation but of love. Such annotations are the gateway to serious reading, remembering, and creating an intellectual diary of your conversation with a brilliant author that can continue again at the drop of a hat.
     Ten years ago there were two books whose subject matter concerned me enough to write in them: The New Evidence That Demands a Verdict by Josh McDowell, a conservative Christian apologist's wet dream, and the Bible. In my early college years I scored the woodpulp of many other works of non-fiction. My first two years after high school I spent at an ultra-conservative Bible College, and my thirst for theological knowledge drove me to spend quality time reading deeply, actively, and wrestling with the ideas I was presented.
     Sadly, that time came to an end. I remember walking into the library of Providence College for the first time. Row upon row of books were laid before me, and I walked between the shelves, my eyes dancing from spine to title to author to Dewey Decimal number. I was nauseated and knew immediately that not in my whole life would I have the time, energy and ability to consume the sum of human knowledge. It was simultaneously thrilling and devastating.
     Every semester I was assigned hundreds of pages to read, mostly highly complex research texts using the technical language of linguistics, philosophy and literary criticism, each with its own set of a hundred bibliographic references in the index in the back. I was trained to read quickly and broadly, to get the gist and move on. In fact, I utterly forgot the importance and method of reading deeply.

     After graduating from college I was set free from this endless academic burden and was granted another instead - the eight-hour day, the five-day week, the eternal countdown to vacation, the inauguration into a system designed to wrest your very best energy, digest every muscle and fiber, and spit out the lifeless remains. I still loved to read, but lacked the energy to do so, I believed, being exhausted from my daily marathon that constitutes my current vocation.
     Partially true, I still maintain. However, the greater truth lies in my forgetfulness. I forgot how to read seriously. When I tried to read the great philosophical, historical and intellectual works in my library as if I were reading a New York Times best-seller, and failed, the whole guilt fell upon my job, and none upon my method. Falling asleep, eh? Not able to read more than a few pages, eh? Sheesh. Pick up a pencil, for Christ's sake, and stop whining.
     I'm not saying I'm going to read everything seriously. There's a place in my life for leisure - much more so for the next six weeks! - and there always will be. I don't need to spend five minutes a page in a work of contemporary fiction, or even The Great Gatsby. But I sure as hell will if I want to read some well-written non-fiction or some well-thought-out philosophy. Poetry, even, maybe.
     I can't leave it to professional educators to drive me to read deeply. Frankly, not only can I not afford to be a perpetual student, more than that, I don't need to be. I know how to read. I know what I want to read. I know I want to skip the bullshit bureaucratic formality that we call college education. The books are there. Smart people to talk to? Yes, they exist off-campus.

     Marking up a book is so much better than the mnemonic techniques of the World Memory Championships - which despite reading a new release on the subject, still seems awfully gimmicky to me. (The subtitle should read, "Remembering anything," not "everything.") Paper was a revolutionary invention, not the mind map. I'm not denying the historicity of such methods, but I challenge anyone to demonstrate them to be a primary intellectual habit of any great thinkers and writers. It's a good tool for the tool belt, but it's not the bread and butter of critical thought.
     The scary part of this is how difficult it is to properly annotate a digital text. One of the more popular apocalyptic prophecies in the past decade has been the end of the printed word. I've always been a nay-sayer - and how much more so in light of the most important method of active reading! This is not to say we couldn't have a digital equivalent, but I expect it will be watered down on many levels. So much of the natural memory depends on the spatial physicality of an object (says Boer of Moonwalking, referenced earlier) and here we are, giving all that up without a fight!

     No, no and double no. Raise your Nay to the Nook, Kindle and Kobo. Throw them into the fire! Ok, maybe a bit dramatic. E-read your way to relaxation on a Caribbean cruise or a quick jaunt up to the chalet. But don't stop building your library. For God's sake, don't stop buying the books that could change your life. Believe that as little as a pen in hand could make all the difference in the world.