How to annotate a non-fiction book
February 27th, 2012 | 
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I have read and annotated my books for a long time, but I have always subconsciously been unhappy with the system I developed. So I’ve done some research, and come up with the following system. Feel free to comment on your own system.
1. Running Page Headers
One of the things I love about the Table of Contents of some old books is that they include detailed descriptive section headers, and those section headers often adorn the top of the pages. Some bibles use this same method to help you scan pages for specific content (Figure 1 below).
This same method can help you return to a book you notated months or years ago and find the content you are looking for.
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Self-love is not selfish
The Principle
Self-love is not always selfish. Healthy self-care is responsible stewardship, not selfish indulgence.
The Practice
In religious circles, it is often verboten to spend any time in self care, self exploration, self restoration, or self appreciation. “Focus on God, not yourself,” is the mantra, but that is a half truth.
Human beings are both broken AND beautiful, both sinful AND made in the image of God. When exiting a toxic system that has exclusively focused on the sinful, broken image of mankind, we often have trouble even examining ourselves, let alone loving ourselves. But there are some things we can do to remedy the thinking that holds us captive to self-loathing or personal stagnation.
Tags: Resources for Self-Publishing Authors
Here’s my growing list of resources for us self-publishers.
Last Update: 01.26.12
Top Self-Publishing Services
- CreateSpace (Amazon)
- Lulu
- Smashwords
Self-Publishing Advice
- New Self-Publisher’s FAQ – 1990′s html, but great content – you must start here.
- The Easiest, Cheapest, Fastest Way to Self-Publish Your Book (Jan 2012 Mediashift PBS)
- 2012 Compare Best Online Book Publishing Companies (TopTenReviews)
- 25 Self-Publishing Companies Analyzed, Compared and Ranked
- Resources (Self Publishing Review)
- Self-publishing a book: 25 things you need to know (CNET from 2010)
- The Easiest, Cheapest, Fastest Way to Self-Publish Your Book (PBS)
- TheBookDesigner.com
- Where to Self-Publish Your Book: A Round-Up
- Technical Tutorials for Authors—Best Resources for POD Publishers—CreateSpace, Lightning Source, Lulu and Others
Marketing
- How To Create A Facebook Fan Page For Your Book Or Author Brand
- Plug Your Book! Online Book Marketing for Authors, Book Publicity through Social Networking
Design
- 3d-pack.com – free 3D book cover image creator. You have to provide the base images, but it’s nice.
- ISBN Barcode Creator Online
- pixlr.com – a free online Photoshop-like app
Ongoing Information
- MediaShift (PBS)
The End of Diplomacy
The Principle
If an omniscient God really exists, then he will not be fooled by my pretending to believe. It is better to stop fooling myself and live honestly regarding what is going on in my heart.
The Practice
You may not be able to talk about your doubts or questions with those closest to you, but that doesn’t mean that you have to keep pretending. Just stop faking it. Stop pretending to be happy with your religious or ideological practices, stop going to meetings, and stop hating yourself!
Start journaling your true thoughts and feelings. If you can find a mature, understanding confidant, talk to them – have coffee or meals together.
And start reading books by people who’ve gone through what you’re experiencing. You are not alone in this journey. Warning! Many books by former ideologues are very biased against where they came from, and are filled with unhelpful and wrong perspectives.
Try to find books by people who are somewhat respectful of their former position, even if they disagree with it. You can start with my post Books on Leaving Faith.
The Impact
The impact on you should be immediate relief. No more fakery. You may not have ‘come out’ to your friends and family yet, but at least now you can be at home with yourself as you allow yourself to go on this journey towards integrity. Congratulations! You can do it!
Your friends and family may notice a change. It may be wise to avoid direct confrontations, discussions, or arguments about what you are thinking. For now, just put them off by telling them that you are “doing some internal work, just thinking about where you are going in life, and don’t want to talk about it right now.” That’ll do.
Pensees 03 – T.S. Eliot on Despair
NOTE: This post is part of a series in which I am blogging my way through Blaise Pascal’s book Pensees.
OK, I admit it, I AM going to blog through Pascal’s Pensees. Here’s another interesting quote by T.S. Eliot from the Introduction to Pensees:
His despair, his disillusion, are, however, no illustration of personal weakness; they are perfectly objective, because they are essential moments in the progress of the intellectual soul; and for the type of Pascal they are the analogue of the drought, the dark night, which is an essential stage in the progress of the Christian mystic. A similar despair, when it is arrived at by a diseased character or an impure soul, may issue in the most disastrous consequences though with the most superb manifestations; and thus we get Gulliver’s Travels; but in Pascal we find no such distortion; his despair is in itself more terrible than Swift’s, because our heart tells us that it corresponds exactly to the facts and cannot be dismissed as mental disease; but it was also a despair which was a necessary prelude to, and element in, the joy of faith.
Pensees 02 – T.S. Eliot on Christian v. secular logic
NOTE: This post is part of a series in which I am blogging my way through Blaise Pascal’s book Pensees.
Though I am not blogging through Pascal’s Pensees, maybe I should! Here’s another interesting quote by T.S. Eliot from the Introduction to Pensees:
The Christian thinker–and I mean the man who is trying consciously and conscientiously to explain to himself the sequence which culminated in faith, rather than the public apologist–proceeds by rejection and elimination. He finds the world to be so and so; he finds its character inexplicable by any non-religious theory; among religions he finds Christianity, and Catholic Christianity, to account most satisfactorily for the world and especially for the moral world within; and thus, by what Newman calls “powerful and concurrent” reasons, he finds himself inexorably committed to the dogma of the Incarnation….
To the unbeliever, this method seems disingenuous and perverse; for the unbeliever is, as a rule, not so greatly troubled to explain the world to himself, nor so greatly distressed by its disorder; nor is he generally concerned (in modern terms) to “preserve values….The unbeliever starts from the other end, and as likely as not with the question: Is a case of human parthenogenesis credible?
Pensees 01 – T. S. Eliot on Skepticism
“For every man who thinks and lives by thought must have his own skepticism, that which stops at the question, that which ends in denial, or that which leads to faith and which is somehow integrated into the faith which transcends it.” ~ T.S. Eliot from the Introduction to Pacal’s Pensees.
Interesting, his description of three outcomes. You could look at this as a process towards faith, or as three separate outcomes. For example:
- Question > Doubt > Faith
OR
- Question (agnostic)
- Question > Doubt (atheist)
- Question > Faith (believer)
The worst outcome, of course, might be to stop at the question and stay agnostic. Then again, maybe the questions are unanswerable!
Interview: Former Atheist Richard Morgan
At Apologetics315 is the second interview I’ve heard with former atheist Richard Morgan (hear another interview at Unbelievable), and his story is interesting. In the context of this site, what is interesting are the factors that led to his conversion. They seem to be:
- Disgust with the hateful rhetoric by his fellow atheists at RichardDawkins.net
- The patience and persistence of a pastor who frequented that site answering questions and ignoring insults.
- His own experience of suddenly understanding the passage “We love Him because He first loved us (1 John 4:19). More than an understanding, he was surprised to experience divine love at the same time, an experience which he says has continued and deepened since his experience in 2008.
This highlights one of the disconnects between the common path to faith, one of experience first, followed later by intellect (or as Augustine said, ‘faith seeking understanding”), and atheism, which values reason and empiricism first, almost to the exclusion of experience.
Why I became an Atheist 07 – Bad reasons for belief (Part IV)
NOTE: This post is part of a series in which I am blogging my way through John Loftus’ book Why I Became an Atheist: A Former Preacher Rejects Christianity.
In Part I, Part II, and Part III of this mini-series, I covered the lists of bad reasons for both belief and disbelief from John Loftus’ book. In this post, I’d like to complete the discussion of my own list of bad reasons for belief.
My list of bad reasons to believe include:
- Guilt manipulation by preachers
- Fear of punishment
- Choosing the default belief of one’s family or culture
- Secondary benefits of religion like community, education, child training, or social and business contacts
- Reaction to abusive secular, atheist, or religious parents or leaders
- A response to a near death experience or trauma
- Believing the first good argument you hear
- Experiencing awe and reverence at creation
Let’s continue discussing the last four items.
Why I Became an Atheist 06 – Bad reasons for belief (Part III)
NOTE: This post is part of a series in which I am blogging my way through John Loftus’ book Why I Became an Atheist: A Former Preacher Rejects Christianity.
In Part I and Part II of this mini-series, I covered the lists of bad reasons for both belief and disbelief. In this post, I’d like to discuss my own list of bad reasons for belief.
My list of bad reasons to believe include:
- Guilt manipulation by preachers
- Fear of punishment
- Choosing the default belief of one’s family or culture
- Secondary benefits of religion like community, education, child training, or social and business contacts
- Reaction to abusive secular, atheist, or religious parents or leaders
- A response to a near death experience or trauma
- Believing the first good argument you hear
- Experiencing awe and reverence at creation