A physical reading journal
for someone who hates book reviews, doesn't have time to draw out a spread, and has a visual memory
I have always loved the idea of starting a reading journal, but I really wasn’t sure how to go about it for the longest time. I’ve uploaded progress on GoodReads (and I even keep up with the Fable app), but I super hate writing reviews to post for all the world to see.
The purpose of writing any “review” or reflection on a book is for me to refer to when I want to recommend or re-read something. I know I recommend “Kite Runner” to certain people and “Because of Winn-Dixie” to others. I also remember absolutely adoring “The Tales of Despereaux,” “Princess Academy,” and “Dragon Rider” when I was growing up, but I completely forgot why.
The Stationary
Look, we all know starting a reading journal, there is an underlying excuse to purchase more journals and stationary. I knew exactly what I wanted: one of those tall, narrow-paged notebooks, also known as travel journals or hobonichi techo journals. But I was having a hell of a time trying to find a super simple, straightforward “refill” version of this….
So I caved and got a Travel Journal — which had all of the travel-themed pages, tables, time zone, and other travel-related accoutrement — by Moleskin from Barnes ‘n’ Noble.
(And I found the exact thing I wanted just earlier this month after weeks of digging through Amazon and putting in different search terms.)
I wound up taping and gluing the first section of pages of the travel journal to make flipping to my reading tracker easy. I also slapped a cute sticker over the embossed Travel Journal title. Although, I do appreciate the symbolism on how reading really kinda is like taking little trips.
Tracking my reading
This is a super not-serious reading journal! I track what I read in the year by printing little 1.5’ wide book covers on sticker-sheet paper, and paste those to the front section of the journal. Right under each book cover, I write the date I completed it and the rating.
That’s it! I don’t break it down by month or season or any of that. I already keep a number of journals, and this is a periodic, “I have some time to have a bit of fun” kind of journaling.
This is a super low-maintenance way of keeping records of my “journeys.” The most labor intensive part is putting together the materials for the actual journal entries:
The reading entries
Gather the things
I almost treat each spread as a Pinterest board. What vibes was this book giving? What’s the theme? What imagery did I see while I was reading it? Is there existing fan art of this already?
Sticker Paper + Canva + Pinterest = Free Stickers
I print nearly everything on
Print your own book cover stickers
Shop for planner stickers on Etsy (especially if you can use the same themed sheet across your favorite genre of books).
Include maps and graphs
Draw elements yourself!
Find planner sticker books at a hobby store for memorable quotes
Print and Assemble
I always keep one thing the same throughout all the different entries:
The book cover (again, yes, I know it’s in the front of the journal, too)
The written elements at the top of each entry, which we’ll get to in a moment
This scrapbook part is usually my favorite part! I don’t reprint any stickers to re-size anything. I just take what I already printed and make do with what I have. I’ll flip through my planner sticker books a few times to make sure I didn’t miss anything that could be perfect match for the book, go through paper bits I found at craft stores, and just move the pieces around the open journal and play with layouts!
Once I have it down, sometimes I need to take a photo of how I want it laid out before I get to peeling stickers or gluing pieces.
Write
The written entry is pretty straightforward:
Title
Format it was read
How many pages the physical book has
When I started it
When I finished it
Then I fill out the page with thoughts about the book, and — if there’s room — a short summary of the book from Good Reads.
This is the very last part of putting together a spread. I’ll write around the elements that I laid down for the two pages and make that my word-limit.
I don’t really critique the book like a lot of readers do…I either enjoyed the story or I didn’t. Some pieces of literature stick to me and others don’t. There are writers who simply take my breath away with their unique word-smithing, and others who just tell me like it is. I enjoy them all in their different functions. I just like to use the remaining space in each spread to simply jot my thoughts on it, like any other diary entry. Even if I don’t like it, I’ll simply either stop reading it, or read it because it actually cost me some money to get a copy of it.
My TBR list is far too long for me to waste time on a book that I don’t enjoy.
One of my favorite features of reading my Kindle is that there’s a whole section where I can revisit my “clippings” or quotes that I highlighted from books. That’s the only time I really do any kind of reading annotations.
DNFs (did not finish)
I made the fatal mistake a few times — specifically to older books — that I started and just simply cannot finish. The older way of writing takes so much brain power to follow, I always fall out of the world and forget who’s who and what’s going on. It’s just more…DENSE. Like the Bible, I can’t really read more than a few paragraphs at a time, and I need a week to think about what I read; not only due to its complexity, but also because of its beauty.
This happened while reading “Dracula,” “Frankenstein,” and my most recent DNF, Jane Austin’s “Emma.” It took me a year to get halfway through “Dracula,” and there were just so many characters in the first 3 chapters of “Emma” that I quickly lost track of who’s most ostentatious manners belong to who.
Currently, I’m reading:
“Girl in the Tower,” a continuation of “The Nightingale and the Bear”
“The Spellshop” on audio book, literally SO fun to listen to
“Iron Flame” on Kindle…although I might honestly turn this into an audio read after “The Spellshop” so I can go back to the ToG series, and continue with "Kingdom of Ash.”
I also just not a notification that “Butter” and “Buffalo Hunter Hunter” is ready for me to pick up!
If you want to see the other 111 books in my TBR (hehehehe), give me a follow on the Fable app and we can chat about how annoying Feyre is or something. Or, feel free to tell me what you’re reading in the comments section! Maybe if we get enough to comment, it’ll illicit a Book chat!?
Until our next encounter, goblins! ✩₊˚.⋆☾⋆⁺₊✧✩₊˚.⋆☾⋆⁺₊✧✩₊˚.⋆☾⋆⁺₊✧✩₊˚.⋆☾⋆⁺₊✧✩₊˚.⋆☾⋆⁺₊✧✩₊˚.⋆☾⋆⁺₊✧✩₊˚