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This began on the Victor Hugo thread- so I've copied and pasted what I started it with.
Now bookmarks raises a good point.
Do you use proper bookmarks- material/card/leather/ whatever else, or little bits of paper/ envelopes etc.
I do have bookmarks, but find one of the boys knocks the book off (wherever it's waiting for me to pick it up from)and the bookmark slips out and I lose the page I was on.
I find small bits of paper torn off corners of paper or from the flap of envelopes, stay in place.
So reveal your bookmark secrets, successes and failures.
I've stared using plastic Post-it flags.
They stick without ruining the page yet stay when the book is knocked. They act more like a tab which you touch as soon as you pick the book up so you are right at the page immediatley.
If kids find them too bright to resist just stick them on the page inside and the book opens up on that page without it being visible to little monstrous hands.
Another point. Just stick it on the back cover until you finish. So you no longer lose it or get it soggy if reading in the bath.
I always fold the corner of the page over , I read so quickly that the book is not full of greased pages , maybe if the book is good none at all. When reading a hardback I use the dust cover leaves as a book mark.
I have two leather bookmarks I love to use. One is a brown one with a New Zealand pattern embossed on it, given to me from a holidaying friend in 1980. The other is a pastel pink one with gold print (also gifted to me) from a friend's holiday in Queensland at around the same time.
When I have more than one book on the go, I save my leather ones for the reads I'm enjoying most but when they're both in use, I resort to business cards or other scrappy paper I find about the place for additional (not priority) books.
A mix of proper bookmarks (gifts) and bits of paper, old birthday cards, and in reference books I use those tiny slips made for the purpose (like post-it notes only much smaller). At our library they have a strange collection of things they've found in books and obviously used as bookmarks - including family photographs.
Betsie I bought a second hand book once and it had an old photograph in it. I wrote a story based on that. It is amazing how finding something like somebody elses old picture can send your imagination racing.
I use card bookmarks, some of them have sayings on them like ' Books are where things are explained to you; life is where things aren't.' That one was from Flaubert's Parrot by Julian Barnes. The other one I like says 'The best way to travel is by means of imagination.' I've had this particular bookmark for years, it's my favourite; I don't what I'd do if I lost it.
cards, proper bookmarks, one my daughter made for me, with budgie stickers on it, (years ago!) which I laminated to preserve it. One of our treasured possessions is a little mouse with a long leather tail. He was my Dad's bookmark and when the book got exciting he would twirl the mouse round and round by the tail and sometimes he would let go and it would fly across the room!
I used to use anything that came to hand but the one I use most of the time is one that I got free when I bought a card in my local Wishes shop which is a Cancer Research UK charity shop that sells cards and gifts.
I work in a library and have access to an endless supply of different kids bookmarks that we give free to customers. Currently using a red ladybird one, a Spot the Dog one and a Homer Simpson. As soon as they get tatty I get more. In the summer when the children do their annual reading challenge I hear we are getting hologram ones in - can't wait!
I knew you'd say that.
But of course that is an obvious answer!
One of the companies I use for buying books from, has started adding a bookmark in with my orders recently- which I like, and do find useful.
Plastic clips that hold new shirts in their presentation wrapping.
The rectangular "frame" slides one side of book page whilst the pointy arrow shaped part clasps the other side of the paper and is positioned at the line last read.
Comments
Now bookmarks raises a good point.
Do you use proper bookmarks- material/card/leather/ whatever else, or little bits of paper/ envelopes etc.
I do have bookmarks, but find one of the boys knocks the book off (wherever it's waiting for me to pick it up from)and the bookmark slips out and I lose the page I was on.
I find small bits of paper torn off corners of paper or from the flap of envelopes, stay in place.
So reveal your bookmark secrets, successes and failures.
I've stared using plastic Post-it flags.
They stick without ruining the page yet stay when the book is knocked. They act more like a tab which you touch as soon as you pick the book up so you are right at the page immediatley.
If kids find them too bright to resist just stick them on the page inside and the book opens up on that page without it being visible to little monstrous hands.
Another point. Just stick it on the back cover until you finish. So you no longer lose it or get it soggy if reading in the bath.
Rich
When I have more than one book on the go, I save my leather ones for the reads I'm enjoying most but when they're both in use, I resort to business cards or other scrappy paper I find about the place for additional (not priority) books.
Oh, and I read in unusual places!
But of course that is an obvious answer!
One of the companies I use for buying books from, has started adding a bookmark in with my orders recently- which I like, and do find useful.
The rectangular "frame" slides one side of book page whilst the pointy arrow shaped part clasps the other side of the paper and is positioned at the line last read.