“A Year in Marginalia” by Sam Anderson
The writing I enjoy doing most, every year, is marginalia: spontaneous bursts of pure, private response to whatever book happens to be in front of me. It’s the most intimate, complete, and honest form of criticism possible — not the big wide-angle aerial shot you get from an official review essay, but a moment-by-moment record of what a book actually feels like to the actively reading brain. Here are some snapshots, month by month, of my marginalia from 2010.This is the best “Year of Reading” list I’ve seen yet. Sam has an awesome Twitter where he tweets the best sentence he reads every day: @shamblanderson
MARGINALIA 4EVA!
Also a wonderful experience: reading marginalia from years ago. For example, my 11th grade copy of Ralph Ellison’s Invisible Man has the word “reefer” circled and a line drawn to the margin with the word “marijuana” written as explanation (it’s blurry because I wrote it in pencil):
That I needed this explanation in 11th grade may tell you something about my life.
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