And I’d love to go round shoving cuttings (which I guess would take the form of annotations or sidenotes) into books at Google books or Shelfari or LibraryThing. Somebody invent that.

And, Em, this is really why I’m enjoying the /Reading thing – I’m rediscovering old books and looking at books differently – as sources for readings… I’m also wondering if I should start ‘sexing up’ the readings a bit – how about a soundtrack? I’ve already started to read them in ‘locations’ – lately the Quaker Garden on Euston Road and the British Library courtyard. That might add colour mightn’t it?

My favourite books are not just those whose pictures still play in my head but the ones that evoke the memory of when I first read them. I’m finding this even more when reading old children stories to my son – childhood memories I’d completely forgotten.

My ultimate collection would give the story of each book’s existence rather than a textual analysis. Like the beautiful history of your Dad’s collection and its tragic,heartwrenching end.

I have an unfinished copy of War and Peace which I started when I was 14 and don’t intend to finish. I can’t bear to part with it though. I broke my leg as a teenager but could only get the wheelchair into the school library. I figured if I was going to be stuck there for weeks I better read something hefty. Only I got better before I finished it.
It was an attempt at an intellectual ‘fuck you’ to the teachers who’d failed to give me any lessons, so whenever they decided to visit, I’d proudly declare I was reading War & Peace. I was living the bohemian dream: reading Tolstoy, bravely smoking in the school field (because I couldnt climb the fence with friends) and graffitying my leg with names of similarly rebellious bands I’d probably never heard play.
I remember very little about the book except that the characters’ names were very long.

I think collecting and sharing are very different things.

Collecting is often about order, completion or control (or a desire to try and achieve these things).

Sharing is often about a route to publicly define yourself (that’s not to say there aren’t external benefits to that desire too).

The successful tools will be the ones that speak to these functions. Part of the reason I think Twitter works is that it services people’s implicit desire to ensure their thoughts are heard. I have thoughts, I have followers. I send things that define or describe me and as I can see a follower number I know it is worth my while to continue doing that.