I just got this one: Please double check the book to make sure it does not have excessive writing or underlining. An occasional mark or notation is FINE, just please make sure they are not so excessive as to be distracting. Thank you. What do people think of this?

I think I am perfectly capable of determining excessive vs occasional. Others may not feel comfortable doing so. If you are not comfortable with it decline the RC. 

Regardless of the RC, it is dealing with the textbook clause and a book that has the issue it is addressing would require a PM to get the requesters acceptance anyway before sending so as far as I can see, the RC is a mute issue other than getting denied and speeding up the process for any books with a lot of writing or underlining. The sender would be protected because they have to get the ok in a PM before sending anyway in order to follow the textbook acception and be able to send a book with writing or highlighting.

thanks Melanie

I think someone with that RC ordered a book from me recently, and I had no problem with it, as my book didn't have any underlining, etc.  I sent the book. Pat

I think it's fine and not subjective at all.

Just checked the book, there is no underlining or highlighting so I'm sending it

It's almost an anti-RC, in the sense that the textbook exemption rules are that you must contact the receiver and get an OK before sending a book with any highlighting/underlining in it at all (on text pages). Their RC says that a few marks are OK, presumably because the requestor got tired of having to deal with all the PMs relating to the textbook exemption rules (or they don't mind a few marks and wanted to make that explicit).

Excessive versus occasional is somewhat of a judgment call, but I think most of the time you will know which side of the spectrum a book falls on (and if it's in the middle, you can always just refuse the request).

I got a similar RC recently and assumed that given that it was by an author who is often studied in certain modern literature classes (I wouldn't call my book a textbook, but I've used & highlighted some books for classes that I wouldn't consider textbooks), I assumed the person in front of me in the FIFO line had used theirs as a textbook and that the RC was to get past this.

Any book can be considered a textbook, even it was just to do a book report for a class.  That's why the "textbook" exception exists.

If I were to receive this RC, and I had any highlighting or underlining, I would still follow the rules of the textbook exception.  This give you a digital trail to follow should there be any questions by the receiver, which protects the sender.