There is/the book is

[Glizdka]

Book titles should be in italics or between quotation marks.

Wow! It's the first time I've come across this. I always treated book titles as just names, and only capitalized them the same way I capitalize other names (countries, songs, companies, etc.) because I didn't think it was necessary to apply an additional text modification on top of capitalization.

I've consulted a few style guides my current writing style is based on, and... all of them state citing complete works requires either italics, quotation marks, or, surprisingly, underlining. I can't really see why, but it must be important. Could you help me understand why it is? The only situation in which it's useful I can think of is when the title is the name of a caracter.

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Harry Potter is the main character in "Harry Potter"/Harry Potter.

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I've been working on my style for some time now, and it's changed a few times already. Seems like I need to add another change, then. I don't know how to avoid collision with how I currently use quotation marks and italics. What do you recommend?

I use quotation marks for quoting something said by either me or someone else, add an alias in between a person's first and last name, or to cast doubt the same way the phrase so called does.
I use italics when I refer to a word or phrase, not use it myself, or when I emphasize a particular use of a word/phrase in a specific context.
I use boldface for regular emphasis or to draw my reader's attention towards a specific part.
I use colors for reference.
I don't use underlines; it looks too much like a link on the internet.

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Light "Kira" Yagami is the main character in Death Note. He often mentions he's "God of the new world" that has saved humanity from crime. I don't think he's saved humanity. If anything, he's only introduced more suffering. Saving from crime is impossible if you use crime to do that (Yagami murders murderers).

Sample oversaturated with text modification on purpose

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I'm leaning towards italicizing book titles. I can easily imagine how a book title can appear as the first item within a quotation, which would require me to use two quotation in succession, and I'm not comfortable with that.
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Sally said "Harry Potter is my favorite book. I'd love to go to Hogwarts and learn magic just like Harry Potter!"​

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[jutfrank]

I've consulted a few style guides my current writing style is based on, and... all of them state citing complete works requires either italics, quotation marks, or, surprisingly, underlining.

Quotation marks? Yuck! I like (and suggest you use) italics. I've no idea how anybody might suggest underlining.

I can't really see why, but it must be important. Could you help me understand why it is?

It isn't that important but it does considerably help the reader pick it out from the surrounding text. It's as simple as that.

I use quotation marks for quoting something said by either me or someone else, add an alias in between a person's first and last name, or to cast doubt the same way the phrase so called does.
I use italics when I refer to a word or phrase, not use it myself, or when I emphasize a particular use of a word/phrase in a specific context.
I use boldface for regular emphasis or to draw my reader's attention towards a specific part.
I use colors for reference.
I don't use underlines; it looks too much like a link on the internet.

Fine. I don't see why you can't add using italics for titles to your repertoire.

 

[GoesStation]

I've no idea how anybody might suggest underlining.

Underlining was the only way to change fonts on a typewriter. It was a somewhat laborious process: you typed the title, then hit backspace once for each letter, then hit the caps lock key, and finally, typed an underscore for every letter. It was quicker on an electric typewriter because the key would repeat if you held it down; you just had to release it before you reached the end.

Since we only had underlining, it stood in for italics.

 

[jutfrank]

I am (unfortunately) just about old enough to remember writing with typewriters. By the time I started my first year at university, I was writing my essays on an electric one, which I think had a function for italics. If it didn't, I can't remember how I got around the problem. Certainly not by underlining.

 

[GoesStation]

It's very unlikely your electric typewriter could do italics unless you had a separate type head. Typewriters normally have a single, cast metal slug for each letter. IBM Selectrics had a type ball which you could change; it's possible that some late models had a way to change balls automatically.

Underlining a whole paragraph was really tiresome.

 

[Rover_KE]

Topic drift.

Thread closed.