Starting a Reading Journal

[seleneheart]

In 2024, I decided to start reading published books again, instead of long-form fanfic downloaded from AO3, because I needed more of a challenging read than fanfic provides. To stay motivated for 2025, I'm participating in a Book Bingo challenge. All of the above led me to decide that I want to start a journal dedicated to my reading.

And I don't want anything digital, otherwise, my Goodreads list would be adequate.

I've looked at some that people have posted here, and trying to figure out what I want to do. I think I want a bigger size that my A5 bullet journal, and I think I want to do less hand-drawn art that what I put in my bujo. Maybe more scrapbook-y and less time-consuming. I definitely want to do something like print out the book covers on sticker paper.

What type of information do you include? How do you sequence the books? Do you have a daily reading log or something similar?


Mods: could we get a style: reading journal tag?

Comments

[ioplokon]

I use one my dad got me as a gift because, hey - free journal, but I tho it's too small for your needs.

I track: title, author(s), publisher, publication year, date started/finished, subject, and then my general thoughts + a star rating.

One thing I have found frustrating about dedicated reading journals that have set questions/rubrics is that they don't tend to handle a diverse selection of genres (especially if you read both fiction & nonfiction). So may want to take that into account when you are deciding what to record.

Ultimately, I guess, think about what the purpose of the journal is. For me, there are 2. I want to keep track of what I read & have some quick notes to refer to later if I do a fuller review, and I want to use it to find more books I might like (especially branching out to smaller presses, which is why I track publisher). Your needs might be different (tracking frequency of reading, maybe?) & so the journal should be, too.

[seleneheart]

I want to have a place to write down my thoughts about the book, as well as quotes. I also want to track the things you suggest. I hadn't thought about tracking publisher, but that's a good idea for smaller presses. I hadn't thought about genre either. Thanks!