I love used books for their imperfections.

I like how the previous reader is imprinted there--between pages are spilled coffee, annotations, strands of hair, dog-eared pages. There's history. You learn that the last owner drank coffee, perhaps had long black hair, and didn't know the word "firmament."

In fact, I’ve gone so far that now, sometimes, before I begin the novel, I skim the entire book only reading the underlined areas and the notes on the side. It’s practical sometimes—difficult vocabulary is defined, connections I previously haven’t made are outlined, and references I don’t know are explained. If you hate spoilers, don’t try this out, but there’s something special when the book turns into another thing entirely as the chronology becomes disjointed and your sense of the novel condenses into a sense of who the reader was.

Let me give you an example. My copy of "All the Pretty Horses" was thrifted from a small bookstore in downtown Los Angeles, and it was marked with blue ink starting from page one. The only things underlined were small details like "stood in the dark glass where the lilies leaned so palely," "eyelids paper thin," "it was just grainy light outside."

The psyche of the previous reader makes me wonder what kind of person is this sensitive to the contours of small things, of "crossed a river under a white quartermoon naked and pale and thin." Who would make their own edits to the text, crossing out the "c" in "It was growing colder" turning it into "It was growing older."? And why, in the middle of a major plot point, did they suddenly interrupt:

"'We're druggies--we're not supposed to be reading! Stop with the literature, let's go to the party!'--Melanie."

Is Melanie a friend? A reference to a song?

Honestly, I disliked all this noise when I started owning more used books, but in time, I learned this too was a small pleasure. After all, isn't life a lot like this? Our own plans for coherence, for following sentences neatly line-by-line are constantly interrupted by others. They're sitting with you, reading the same book, making all sorts of comments and living a life somewhat obscure from your own.

It's humbling to not even possess the privacy of a book. I am reminded, again and again, that the person reading is just as loud and important as the writer.

Balzac once said that reading brings us unknown friends, and if that's the case, I don't mind being a little distracted.