How I Converse With Literature
On how I annotate and keep a reading journal as I read...
I’ve been annotating books for ten years now. My methods have changed throughout the years, but the intention is still the same. I annotate to remember and later return to have conversation with these passages.
I am a firm believer, as long time subscribers will know, that literature is all about conversation. Conversation between different books, society and with the reader. Passages in books are meant to be taken and interpreted, in both their context and also in your own context. They are meant to inspire and to evoke emotion. This is not just true of fiction, but non-fiction too. Of any combination of words really.
But back to the annotations. As I said I’ve been annotating books for around 10 years now and I believe I have gone through three stages of annotations. Not vastly different, but each represents the type of reader I was or am.
So I’ll take you on my annotating journey and bring you up to speed to where I am today as someone who writes quote driven newsletters with the literature I read.
Age 15-18
These were the years of school, where I fell in love with literature (ditching STEM) and began to focus my studies upon it. It was the years of Shakespeare, Dickens and poetry. Most of these would have been copies of school books so pencil was all I used. I was a keen user of Staedtler Noris 120 Pencil (with the red top or occasionally I’d buy one with a rubber).
I would underline passages that were relevant to key themes or useful for my exams. I perhaps underlined too much. When one discovers the ability to underline they tend to go astray at first and think everything is necessary!
I would write in the margins and above the text what my teachers told me, what I read on SparkNotes and perhaps an original thought of my own. But annotation was, at that time, an educational transaction.
Age 19-21
These were probably the most pivotal years in my annotation journey and they coincide with my time studying English and Philosophy at university. I, of course, read literature for academic purposes but I also read a lot more for pleasure here.
I shall start with academia first. Studying at university is a lot different than at school. You have a lot more freedom with the ideas you want to explore and run with. You also develop the skill of being more selective with what you choose to focus on. You generally have an essay in mind and tend to focus on the passages that will support this argument. In some cases, the novels you read are more obscure and there are little resources online to draw from and the annotations have to be your own.
I was still using a pencil at this point. I would underline the relevant passages and I would also use a sticky tab, placing this on the page to help me easily come back to it. I didn’t have a colour scheme, only that I wanted the same colour tab for the book because colour makes me stressed!
In terms of the annotation itself, these would be keywords. For instance, my main literary interests were mother-daughter relationships, class, feminism etc. So as I look back through my copy of Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit I find:
class
marriage
men
mother omniscience
belonging
These are just some of the words I have written across those pages, so when I returned to the book to write an essay I had quick and easy access.
At the same time, during these periods I had also heavily picked up reading for pleasure and started writing book reviews on my own WordPress and for an online magazine. It was also lockdown so I had a lot more time to read as well.
My method of annotation was very similar to that of my academic annotations, other than I did not have an essay to write and what I was underlining was for myself. I was reading books that heavily resonated with myself, my growth and the chaos that was descending in society at the time. So I would underline in pencil, tab key pages and scribble key thoughts that I wanted to remember or recall.
For instance, from the book The Confession by Jessie Burton (a brilliant book and author) I have:
tabbed the epigraphs
tabbed a quote about what love could feel like (I was going through it with relationships at the time!)
a women understanding her own menstrual cycle best
As mentioned I had created a WordPress to write book reviews. These were very similar to my notes from series that I do now. I would draw on the quotes that I stored in a Notion database to fuel my review and place in context to contemporary society.
I also wrote for, and still do, a voluntary online magazine for the book section. I would predominantly write reviews for upcoming releases. As these had so few reviews I really had to focus on the structure and plot of these so I could give the best outline possible. I was fortunate to read Constellation of Eve by Abbigail Nguyen Rosewood and here are some annotations I made:
alternative universe
life all about death
dreams v reality blurred
mother v daughter
I would say that pencil use was inconsistent in my leisure reading as a lot of this was done on public transport and I was too shy to get out my pencil. Same with tabbing because these would get lost so easily if I put them in my bag. I tended to fold the bottom corners of key pages and potentially go back to tabbing later.
Age 22-25
I have now graduated to using a pen in my books!
At 22 I started my postgraduate degree and I would say my interaction with quotes became less as I dissipated into misery.
At 23 I got my Kindle and read all of my books on a Kindle in 2024.
In 2025 I gradually reintroduced physical books into my life but still do the majority of my reading as ebooks.
All of these have shaped how I annotate in the present day and why I prefer it.
For ebooks:
There is only so much annotating you can do on an e-reader. Just holding my finger down and sliding it across. But it’s a very practical way to ensure I highlight everything I want to no matter where I am.
I read most of my pages at the gym. So reading ebooks allows me to easily highlight key ideas and then I’ll just add a note on the quote about fleeting thought. These tend to be littered with copious typos. Then when I have finished the book I can just copy and paste the quotes into my Notion knowledge hub where I collate all quotes and thematically group them in a database ready for however I want to write about them.
On top of this I also have a reading journal where I write down my personal thoughts and reactions to books. I will come back to this at the end of this section.
For physical books:
As I mentioned, I have only just re-introduced physical books back into my reading after a year of none. I stopped because I have nerve damage in my right hand and reading physical books can be painful. Books are also expensive! But there are some books that I do want to read physically. The books I tend to read physically are classics or ARCs that are kindly sent to me. Recent examples include:
The Idiot, Fyodor Dostoevsky
Beware of Pity, Stefan Zweig
Discord, Jeremy Cooper
Two Serious Ladies, Janes Bowles
So how do I annotate these? As I mentioned, I now use a pen. The Muji pen that most people have and I prefer a 0.5. And I simply underline lines that I either relate to or that I think will be interesting to research and expand upon in my writing.
On top of underlining I have a few other annotation marks that I make on the pages. This includes:
x — I place an x next to any passage that I really like or is key. It basically tells future me that this is important and don’t skip it.
[ — I use a kind of square bracket, bigger than this one, to draw my attention to larger passages that I am interested in. These are not one or two lines but substantially more. It’s not that I am drawn to the line itself but the concept or theory that is at play. These tend to be more research based annotations.
I will also write words in the margins or in other spaces but again these are just key words similar to what I have already mentioned.
For audiobooks:
I will honourably mention audiobooks here! Of course you cannot annotate audiobooks, unless there is a way? I try to choose audiobooks that I doubt I’ll want to underline anything in — that kind of seems cruel but I guess audiobooks are the books I choose for fun rather than intellectual stimulation.
So whilst I cannot underline anything, I do still keep a reading journal page where I write my thoughts as I interact with the audiobook.
Reading Journal:
This was something I started in September in Berlin. I’d been writing down bits and pieces here and there but never stuck to a journal for reading before. So when I was in Berlin I decided to buy a pack of the little pocket Cahier Moleskine. I already owned the dotted ones for my daily to-do lists, so I added another one that was lined. I originally had these held together with a hairband but recently acquired a cheap cover for them.
I write the book title at the top of the page. My first entry was The Vet’s Daughter by Barbara Comyns and I began to write my thoughts whilst I read. I’ve done this for every book since. These single small pages look like this (Young Mungo, Douglas Stuart):
Been a while since I read a book about class — giving Bee Sting vibes — I like Jody — mother-daughter relationship — mother-son relationship — sibling relationships — relational novel — being used for your kindness — oh Jody! — tragic novel — drowned St Christopher symbolism — overwhelmed with the burden of worlds sins — also breaking restrictive conditions — oh Mungo and James — doomed love — Catholic v Protestant — my heart — character growth
These help me write my reviews and also any other piece I decide to write.
My annotation system, then, is minimal. I am a simple person and the purpose of my annotations are to remember and converse. I have a method that helps me easily remember what I read and what I was feeling at the time I read this page.
I have a different system for reading academic essays or articles in general, so let me know if you would be interested in hearing about this method.