How do you take notes while you read?
January 9, 2025 8:16 AM   Subscribe

Specifically interested in printed books and handwriting notes on paper, but open to other ideas, with a focus on comfortable reading environments.

As I ease into my 50s it's been a persistent annoyance through my life. I might want to keep track of characters and plot points in a novel, if it's long and complex or if I might put it down and come back to it. I might be reading a non-fiction book and want to make some notes as reminders and for reference.

Pursuing a grad degree recently, I reverted to this: sitting at the dining room table, textbook on one side, notepad or laptop on the other. But I don't want to "settle in to read a good book" and find myself sitting at a big table hammering away like Bartleby the Scrivener. In fact, I would prefer not to.

If you have a great method for taking notes while reading comfortably, I'd love to hear it.
posted by Shepherd to Sports, Hobbies, & Recreation (12 answers total) 14 users marked this as a favorite
 
Highly controversial, but, the most comfortable way for me to do this is to buy an edition with good typesetting and writing in pencil on the margins. And then maybe flag sticky notes if there’s stuff I know I’ll want to be able to find again. I’ve only ever done this maybe a dozen times, as I typically read small genre paperbacks and historical nonfiction, which don’t have enough space in the margins or high enough paper quality because they rarely get the good publishing treatment. Larger sticky notes have also been helpful.

If you are open to reading digitally, there are a number of applications that incorporate note taking functionality. Depending on your device you would have different ones to choose from. Personally I find digital note taking not helpful at all, but my brain is weird. I will say that e-readers have come an extremely long way and if you haven’t given them a go in a while it’s worth trying again - check out the kindle scribe or kobo elipsa.

I think a lot of what’s comfortable for reading varies from person to person. I almost always read while reclining, in bed or on a couch, and anything for notes is long hand in a sketchbook next to me or on sticky notes I eventually transfer to that sketchbook. (Or written in margins as described above.) When I had to do textbooks not for fun and thus had to do notes and studying stuff, I inevitably ended up on the floor or even walking around with a notepad. If you’re more of an armchair book reader maybe a hard portfolio that could hold a legal pad with maybe a folder side for loose paper would be best, so you could rest it on your knees to write? You could also try something like the google keep app, to take notes on one device like your phone while sitting or out and about, and work on the same notes on a laptop or other device.
posted by Mizu at 8:43 AM on January 9 [1 favorite]


I have written notes in the margins of course, and then I log the notes or write small summaries in the blank inside covers of the books marking page numbers. I could also imagine keeping a sketching notebook on hand.

I love my e-ink device (a Boox) that let's me mark up digital texts, but truthfully I never go back into the notes.

Maybe inserting or even taping a big folded piece of thick stock paper where you can write notes and sketch family trees.
posted by jander03 at 9:05 AM on January 9 [1 favorite]


How to Read a Book has a section on notetaking and recommends an approach on taking notes in the book and the types of notes to take to satisfy your needs. I seem to remember a set and setting set of instructions as well (at a table, with a pencil, etc.), but in flipping through my copy, didn't find it.
posted by chiefthe at 9:16 AM on January 9 [1 favorite]


A sticky-pad slightly smaller than a paperback, and when you start reading a book you add a few sticky sheets inside the front cover? Use the book itself as the writing support.

They could move to a main notebook or live in their book.
posted by clew at 9:23 AM on January 9 [1 favorite]


I keep a little zipper pouch with whatever book I'm reading - it contains a small (a6 size) lined notebook with a plastic pencil board/shitajiki (so I have a portable writing surface), a pen, and a collection of various sticky notes and removable highlighter tape. The notebook is for writing down my thoughts, keeping track of various things, or noting topics I want to look into further; the sticky notes etc. are for highlighting passages I want to return to or copy into my commonplace book later. The pouch is small enough that I can move it between my chair, my bed, or anywhere else I want to read.
posted by darchildre at 9:53 AM on January 9 [4 favorites]


I buy a cheap stack of blank 4x6 index cards and place them on the pages of the book to write on them. I store the cards in an index card storage box or inside the book itself. Sometimes they’re a nice surprise when I come back to a book later!
posted by jknx at 9:57 AM on January 9 [4 favorites]


An app that lets you take notes via voice-to-text would let you read a physical book on the couch rather than in Bartleby mode.

However, the app's performance and accuracy would have to be good enough so that minding the app doesn't become its own major task.

I can't speak to the quality of the app I linked, but I know what you're saying about physical note-taking and sitting at desks.
posted by rabia.elizabeth at 11:35 AM on January 9


I read a lot of library books, and almost all are hardcover with plastic-covered book covers. I tuck a 1/4-stack of sticky notes and a sheet of tape flags under the front fly-leaf.

When there's a quote or something I just want to take note of, I use the tape flags. If I want to take an actual note of my own thoughts, I use the sticky note and have it extend past the edge of the page. When I finish the book, but before I let myself write the review and "get credit" at Goodreads, I transfer my notes to a more fixed location. (If I have a LOT I want to say to myself about a particular section, I'll dictate the notes into a text or Evernote.)

If I just want to mark many things on a page, I take a photo of the page and text it to myself so that when I'm at my desk, I will type more extensive notes (in Evernote, in a draft blog post, in an email, etc.).
posted by The Wrong Kind of Cheese at 5:50 PM on January 9 [1 favorite]


I'm Team Sticky Note. I have some Postits that are slightly smaller than most paperbacks and just peel like, five off, then close them in the front cover. I can then move them through the book as I read, or stick em to the back to make notes.
posted by Jilder at 7:49 PM on January 9


For handwriting notes on paper, this free printable template - the Fast Book Outliner - may be helpful. Multiple versions are available, depending on the density of the material you're taking notes on.
posted by the balance of opinion is gloomy at 8:05 PM on January 9 [1 favorite]


A ton of PostIts [Imgur, images of two pages] works for me
(More than 15 tabs is a HighPostItCount™ book).

So PostIts, usually with scribbles and symbols. I do mark some tabs noting that when I do my final notes to highlight certain lines…

....I've just started ‘highlighting’ by laying a piece of non-reflective glass (usually with a normal piece of glass below that and the whole lot flattens the page nicely) over the page and ‘highlighting’ it with a pen, and then taking a photo (it's not perfect and I need to be very focused as it's easy to hit the glass and move the highlight up or down a line - but it's a lot btn). I do this at the same time as I work through the book and speak the notes into a text file (using either outlook or vs code - both are incapable of learning architectural jargon or plant names though!)

At the end I have a text file summarising the book, and a folder of highlighted page images - occasionally the whole book if it is unavailable (and can't be found on the internets) - I have not been able to buy some technical books in New Zealand at all, and increasingly with ebooks they are not allowed to be interloaned – a great evil.
posted by unearthed at 9:43 PM on January 9


A lab book where I fold the page in half. One side is the quote with reference e.g, page or citation while the other side is my thoughts and analysis.

The first page of the book is a full citation of the book read and then an index of the notes and themes after the lab book is full.
posted by jadepearl at 2:07 AM on January 13


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