The advent of e-readers and widespread adoption of audiobooks, the need for bookmarks has diminished. However, you will always need one whenever you get your hands on a physical book. Other developments – booktok, bookstagram and things of the genre – have introduced a number of wild, bizarre and impractical bookmarks that look cool. With all that in mind, the totally accurate rankings:
NUmber one and undisputed champion
Receipts
The simple, unassuming, flimsy piece of plastic-y paper is perfect to be a bookmark. It is thin, meaning it wont deform your books. They are surprisingly sticky and do not slide out. Above all, you always have one. Just take your receipt when you buy/check out a book. In a coffee shop when you start a new book? Receipt is a few overpriced purchase away.1 Don’t ever expect to know after a couple of days what that receipt was for. It will disappear. Not that anyone cares but still.
The good
Paperback bookmark
These are your generic, get it at the counter bookmark.2 The design is perfect, it is a rectangle of rough paper. The fewer flourishing the better. Textures are bad! Lamination is terrible – it will slide out. Keep it simple3.
Attached red ribbon
Aside from being limited to books that come with them4 and being highly impractical to reuse, they are perfect for the job. The ribbons actually look nice and elevated. Red is the only color these mofos come in and that is correct. You need to see it because of the thinness. For the craft inclined you can build makeshift ones for your books. However, it will be junky, look like shit and suddenly detach and go away defeating the purpose.
Lottery tickets
Basically receipts. You should not be gambling. God forbid you win and now you need to retrieve your ticket5.
serviceable but heartless
Dust jackets
The inside flap of a dust jacket is not supposed to be used as a bookmark. *Stephen A Smith voice* BUT! It is very convenient. Your hardback already came with it. The flap whispers to you: “Give me purpose”, and you comply. It goes right into the correct location. There are even two flaps for the different halves of the book!
It will damage the jacket. It is unpleaseant to look at while you are reading. You gotta be careful handling because it might slip out, specially when you are close to the middle of the book. People will judge you6. It can be used mostly with hardbacks, nothing that a little creativity can’t solve.
Paper cards
These can be your business cards, greeting cards, birthday/anniversary/etc cards. The less fancy the better7. If they are in a single, unfolded sheet, they are much better at this job. The only question you have to answer is how offended the other party will be if they caught you using their card to mark your [INSERT GENRE HERE] book.
Dog ear the pages
The built different choice. All the warnings for the dust jacket apply here but times A MILLION.
SHORT TERM INTERIM CHAMPIONS
Index finger
The superior finger for holding the page while someone interrupts you.
Middle finger
The one you use if you are prone to flipping people off.
Writing implements
Pens and pencils work in short spans. Sometimes you don’t have any better choice. You know when you need it and it does the job. It will fail if minutes become hours. Disaster awaits if hours become days.
Thumb
A photography favorite, whoever is holding the book this way is posing.
Other fingers
Psycho alert!
The BAD
Sticky Notes
What are you thinking? It will damage the book! It looks like you are a freshman in college. If the sticky is neon green, stay away from the person. You can’t really move it around. The glue will go away and improve it! Except, it will slide/fly away at any moment.
Clips
This is more of a category than a single creation8. They all have a clip to pinch your pages9. They are invariably bulky and inconvenient. They make turning pages a chore. Either you a) keep clipping and unclipping; b) clip some random part making the book unbalanced in your hand; or put it away an lose it and you are SOL.
Another book
Self explanatory. The obvious advantage is marking two books at once. The disadvantages? Everything.
Leather
You have a piece of leather hanging out and need a bookmark, go for it. They are usually too thick, can discolor or stain the book. It might stink.
Tissues
Paper tissues, toilet paper, paper towels, things like that go in this category. The use cases are so few. They do make for serviceable short term markers. I’d expect that the reason you have one of these at hand is the same reason you had to stop reading. Go take care of whatever and figure out a real marker later.
THE TERRIBLE
Keycards
It looks great. It should be great. It is not.
The key cards are too slippery, they will come out and you will lose your place.
Cloth
Any crafter will have some pieces or scraps of cloth at hand. They like the hotel keycards, seem like a great idea, but they will slide out.
Playing cards
You probably need these for something else. Playing cards also come in a variety of finishes that can be fine or slippery like the hotel keycards.
The paper stock bookmark/string combo
These are the plague. Take a perfectly good bookmark, drill a hole and put a string or ribbon through it. TERRIBUL!
Now your book is bigger. The string gets caught on everything. Worse, these have replaced the simple bookmarks as bookstores go-tos. Truly a shame.
Corner markers
This must hit so hard if you are stupid.
They are massive. They alter the shape of the book. Impractical. Make storage so much harder. There are way better ways to employ your crafting skills10.
Money
Paper bills are at first glance as good as receipts. The difference? You actually have a use for money. They will rip, you will lose it, etc etc. If I see cash in a book, I will assume it is your secret stash.
Don’t get me start on coins. Come on, be serious.
Guitar picks
A bad short term option. They are just too small and slippery. For a minute or two they work. They are superior to coins due to their shape that can be wedged between the pages near the spine to reduce movement.
Sticky arrow bookmarks
Are you a lawyer? Are you signing at these places? If you answered no to both questions, don’t use these.
Magnetic bookmarks
The worst cousin of the clip bookmark. It deserves the last place spot here.
- CVS receipts are too long tough. ↩︎
- They used to be free and now they cost real money lowering their grade significantly. ↩︎
- Blank index cards work too but you have to go out of your way to get them. ↩︎
- Bibles usually have them. Old textbooks too. ↩︎
- So many bad things can happen. The numbers might rub off. You might lose it. Someone borrows your book with the ticket and now they are the winner. ↩︎
- Clearly the biggest problem here. ↩︎
- Same as your regular paper bookmarks. Not glossy finish or textures or 3D elements. ↩︎
- Paperclips and regular/superior bookmarks attached to a clip for no good reason. ↩︎
- The poor babies. ↩︎
- You can even make them and never use it! ↩︎
Big Cat God Productions 
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