In the Margins

Written Beside the Book

Every note a curator has left beside a book. The shortest reviews on IBDB, and often the most useful.

Showing 25 to 48 of 172 notes

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“Read it twice in the same weekend, which counts.”
on Grief Is the Thing with Feathersin Finished In One Weekend @libbyoverdrive
“Three days. I am still telling people.”
on Six of Crowsin Books I Actually Finished @three_chapters_in
“Read after the first two and before the argument.”
on The Structure of Scientific Revolutionsin A Syllabus For Doubting Yourself @theodore_p
“Needs concentration. Save it for the return leg.”
on The Seven Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastlein Forty Minutes Each Way @commuterfiction
“Roughly two hundred tabs.”
on The Second Sexin Books I Have Ruined With Pencil @annotatedannie
“Only ever to the ones who came back and asked for something harder.”
on Belovedin The Shelf By The Door @margaretreads
“For thirty years. Less certain about it now, still on the list.”
on To Kill a Mockingbirdin Books I Pushed Across The Desk @margaretreads
“Silly. Perfect for a delay.”
on Killing Floorin Forty Minutes Each Way @commuterfiction
“Where the withholding is not a technique but a moral position.”
on Belovedin Novels That Argue With Themselves @theodore_p
“Funny counts. Funny is harder.”
on Cheer Up Lovein Women Writing Their Own Lives @plainjaneausten
“She was a biologist. It shows, in the good way.”
on The Poisonwood Biblein Books With The Botany Right @dr_bramble
“Short. Not easy.”
on The Vegetarianin Finished In One Weekend @libbyoverdrive
“East Coker is the one for this month.”
on Four Quartetsin Poems For A Wet Fortnight @saltmarsh
“Page four hundred and eleven since April.”
on The Priory of the Orange Treein The Pile (2026)@tinyapartmentbigtbr
“Two hundred pages and genuinely funny.”
on My Sister, the Serial Killerin Finished In One Weekend @libbyoverdrive
“The set text that actually worked.”
on Of Mice and Menin Books I Pushed Across The Desk @margaretreads
“Not slow, exactly. Right for the same weeks.”
on H Is for Hawkin Slow Books For Bad Weeks @mossandink
“Read straight after Jane Eyre. It will ruin the first one, correctly.”
on Wide Sargasso Seain Nineteenth Century, Twenty-First Century Feelings @plainjaneausten
“The whaling chapters are the point of the method.”
on Moby-Dickin A Chapter A Week, For A Year @the_slow_reader
“Defended this to a governor in 2011 and would do it again.”
on Persepolisin The Shelf By The Door @margaretreads
“Obviously.”
on Entangled Lifein Books With The Botany Right @dr_bramble
“Already read. Kept on the pile to reread.”
on Piranesiin The Pile (2026)@tinyapartmentbigtbr
“Not wet-fortnight weather at all. Include it anyway.”
on Postcolonial Love Poemin Poems For A Wet Fortnight @saltmarsh
“Younger, but nobody ever objected.”
on Charlotte's Webin Read Aloud, Age Twelve And Up @margaretreads