I just started reading Mother Night. One of the first things I noticed is that a previous reader (or readers) marked some of the pages.
I used to think that marking books was strictly taboo. Then I went to college. There I succumbed to the peer pressure to buy highlighters. I mean, you have to highlight your textbooks, right? How else can you prove that you read them? 😉 So I highlighted anything that I thought was important, which was almost everything, and ruined several books that way. It was embarrassing so I gave up the habit. These days, I rarely mark books because I know that my markings could potentially ruin a book and at the same time reveal something of my thought processes (or lack thereof).
Now, if you feel comfortable marking your own books, I say go for it. But please don’t mark library books. Don’t mar the pages for your own satisfaction at the expense of mine. That is, unless you find a gem, something upon which the majority of future readers will want to stop and ruminate. That I can forgive.
So, Previous Reader, I forgive you for underlining a line from the introduction:
We are what we pretend to be, so we must be careful about what we pretend to be.
As for the rest of your markings, all I can say is, what were you thinking?