A few months ago, I came across an article that mentioned this Amazon site, where you can see the most highlighted passages, or books, of all time in the Kindle store. I was reluctantly fascinated by this, because I’m not generally a reader who highlights, especially in fiction. I’m much more likely to do it in non-fiction, so I remember key takeaways. I also turn off the feature that shows you what people have highlighted in the book you’re reading, when you read on a Kindle or Kindle app. Seeing the random underlines has always driven me a bit batty and interrupted the reading experience. Still, I know a lot of readers do highlight, and not just in their digital books, but in print copies as well. I can honestly say the only print books I’ve ever highlighted, or wrote in, were school textbooks. Even nonfiction books I read for pleasure, I didn’t highlight in print copies, but would instead take notes in a journal for later reference.
The whole notion of highlighting in fiction books makes me curious, why do people do it? I know some readers highlight passages they want to mention in the book review. Or maybe a line is one they think is particularly worth sharing? But there must be other reasons for highlighting fiction, and I’m curious to hear them.
You tell us: do you highlight your fiction books? Why (or why not?)
(as an aside, in addition to seeing popular highlights, you can also search for specific books and see what’s being highlighted in them, at the Amazon site.)
Tags: you tell us
I’m like you I can’t see
The point . I have turned
Off the highlights on my kindle
It annoys me to see them.
When I was a tween and teen and over-emotional (I so do NOT miss those days), I’d underline what I thought were profound ideas in fiction books. Haven’t done that in forever. I make notes in cookbooks now, but pretty much don’t mark books up anymore at all.
Penn
No highlighting, thank you. I just want to read and savor the thing – though I do try to review good books. So maybe highlighting would be a help…. nah. I only rarely quote what an author has written.
Part of it, for me, is my Kindle is older (all buttons)and it’s a lot of WORK to highlight passages. Maybe if I had a touch model.
I highlight for review purposes and I also highlight if I’m planning to interview the author. Say, there’s a passage that gives me a good question to ask (I don’t do questionnaires. I tailor each interview to the author/book.)
I turned off seeing other people’s highlights because it’s annoying, but I do sometimes highlight for myself. I’m a writer, so I might see a few sentences that are just so good and “I wanna be like that when I grow up” so I highlight them.
I highlighted last night a passage from Mary Balogh’s The Proposal. If I find something interesting I highlight it. I don’t know why I do it because I rarely go back to my highlights.
I also like seeing what other people highlight, then scratch my head and wonder why anybody would highlight that.
I highlight like crazy in both fiction and non-fiction, especially now that I have a Kindle (although it was always just light underlining in pencil in paper books, never highlighting). I love that the notes and highlights I make in my Kindle books end up on a webpage where I can refer to them later without having to scroll through the book. In non-fiction it’s usually a point I want to remember, while in fiction it’s often simply a turn of phrase I liked.
I agree with HostyPenn–not only do I not miss those days, but (other than as a lit major at uni) I don’t really highlight in any books anymore. In fact, the last thing I think I highlighted at all was Hesse’s Siddhartha (a bit pompous, I admit). If I’m researching something, I copy it myself, usually onto paper because I’m old school, and make sure I have all the relevant attributes if I need to go back to it.
It took my husband and I about a week to find the instructions to turn off seeing others highlights on the Kindle because it was so frustrating to have all that stuff cluttering up the text. Perhaps we should have read–and highlighted–the instructions!