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I finally visited the famous Powell's City of Books in Portland and saw a handwritten note in a copy of 'Dune' that said 'Paul is just a space hippie with mommy issues, fight me'.
It was tucked between pages 200 and 201, and now I need to know if anyone else has found a truly unhinged marginalia argument in a used book.
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blair_webb14d ago
Check the margins of any used philosophy or political theory book, you'll find a goldmine. I once bought a copy of Marx where two people had a full blown pen fight over the labor theory of value. The trick is to look for books assigned in college classes, that's where the real heated arguments happen. The notes get more unhinged as the semester goes on, you can almost feel their stress. It's the best part of buying used, you get a little piece of someone else's brain left behind.
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jana_hart1814d ago
Found a copy of a dry history book where someone had underlined every mention of taxes and written "BORING, GET TO THE WITCH TRIALS" in red pen. The commitment to being wrong about the book's entire point was impressive. That Powell's note is pretty good, but the real gold is in books people were clearly mad about for a whole semester. The angry underlining and passive aggressive question marks in the margins tell a whole story. It's like getting a free bonus rant with your purchase.
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