I hold the opposite view: I read books to extract intelligence that will help me operate in the world. So I interrogate them like detectives interrogate suspects in movies. I sit alone in a room with a book and point a light at it. By the time I am done the book is in terrible shape -- it is lacerated with earmarks, scratched with scribbles, and if it's a soft cover its spine is cracked. The more worn down the book ends up, the more intel I extracted. There might even be some sadistic pleasure in the process.

I think the idea of revering books as objects comes from an earlier time when books were rare and expensive. But now that books are abundant and cheap, it's a useless conviction. We should cherish books for their content not their physical form.

Plus, once I mark up a book it becomes one of a kind and more valuable. If I keep it intact it's indistinguishable from all the other thousands of its clones.

On occasion, I pick up books from my dad's library. His marginalia from decades ago enhance my reading experience. It becomes a meeting of three minds instead of two. I also enjoy putting down my scribbles next to his. Perhaps a few decades in the future my son will stumble on the same book, traverse the same pages, and trace the thoughts and reactions of his predecessors. For me, that is much more compelling than accumulating a family library filled with pristine volumes that make it indistinguishable from a commercial bookstore.