Asking a book questions as you read is not enough. You should also attempt to answer the questions with a pencil in hand. When you buy a book, you establish a property right in it. When you write in it, you develop full ownership of it.

Why you should write in your book:

When you are willing to engage with the book by writing in it, you pay the author the highest respect.

• Underline the important points.
• Draw vertical lines at the margin when a passage is too long to underline.
• Emph...

Why is marking a book indispensable to reading it? 

First, it keeps you awake, not merely conscious, but wide awake. 

Second, reading, if it is active, is thinking, and thinking tends to express itself in words, spoken or written. The person who says he knows what he thinks bu...