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I meant to have a book review up today, but my flash drive was mistakenly left at work. Instead, I figured I’d finally talk about my 2018 book/reading journal. I also meant to have this up ages ago, but obviously, I dropped the ball on that plan.
I keep a book journal to track my reading. I do use Goodreads (you can friend me on there btw!), but I really only use Goodreads to keep track of books I read and formal reviews I post. My book journal is a place where I can write unfiltered thoughts without worrying about spoilers and is a place where I can save some of my favorite quotes. Honestly though, sometimes I just want to talk about how something ended, and it’s so hard to filter myself in formal reviews. This is also probably why I never reviewed Avengers: Infinity War or Avengers: Endgame or talked about it on social media. Anyway moving on.
In 2018, I used an Icey Designs dot grid journal. Personally, I absolutely love all of the journal cover designs. I’m just not a huge fan of their dot grid layout. Next time I order a journal, I may try a traditional grid instead.
This journal lasted me ten months: January to October 2018.
In this book journal, I kind of treated it like a bullet journal. I formatted my Reads At A Glance page kind of like a future log. Where I had mini calendars, and under the mini calendars, I listed the date and the book finished on that date.
I also outlined my journal notes by date. It really helped me keep track of what books I read when. Plus, I think it’s easy to look up notes by date since I have all of my read dates in Goodreads. If I want to know what I thought of I Believe in a Thing Called Love by Maureen Goo, I can just go to Goodreads, see when I read it, and then grab my book journal that corresponds with that date.
Specialty book journals are great, the ones that are already formatted for you by the notebook company. What I enjoy about a blank journal, however, is that it gives me the freedom to write as much or as little as I want without feeling constrained by the page or wasting a page. It also allows me to change things up as I choose to. For example, in my current book journal, I don’t keep track of genre like I sort of did in my 2018 journal.
I also used my journal to keep track of a lot of the book box selections, like the Book of the Month club. I don’t subscribe to any book boxes at the moment, but I’ve always been curious about the Book of the Month club and also their new YA Book of the Month. I feel like it’d be a great way to branch out into other genres and books I probably wouldn’t have picked for myself. If you’re a member of the Book of the Month or the YA Book of the Month, I’d love to hear your thoughts!
If anyone is wondering, I print book covers for my book journal using address labels. They’re each 0.75 inches wide, and I generally have one book cover per label with 30 labels on the sheet. I then cut them out. I’ve used address labels for many things since my childhood. I even used them to create “this book belongs to” stickers. I’m sure there’s a better way to do it, but I don’t think I’ll ever stray from my beloved address labels.
& That’s pretty much my 2018 book journal. I’d do a flip through of it, but I don’t have the camera set up for a flip through. I also don’t want to share any of my spoilery thoughts. If you want to know more though, don’t be afraid to let me know! I’d love to share more with you.
Currently, I’m in the 10th Anniversary edition dot grid MD A5 notebook. I don’t believe it’s available anymore, but now they have just a regular A5 dot grid. I really enjoy the MD paper, but to be honest, I’m bored. I’ve been in this notebook since November 2018, and I’m only halfway through it. It just has too many pages. I miss the pretty cover of my Icey Design notebook.
How do you keep track of your reading? Let me know in the comments! Happy reading!
