history

Reading

A short history of complaining in the margins

Readers have been leaving grumpy notes in books for as long as there have been margins to leave them in.

Essays

The commonplace book, before it was a metaphor

Before 'commonplace' meant ordinary, it named a specific kind of notebook — and a specific kind of reading.

Essays

What the word marginalia actually covers

Not just underlining. The word covers a much wider habit than the pencil marks most people picture.