Book Journals! I forgot to mention Book Journals. When I talked about “all things books” I didn’t mention one of my favorite things. I started keeping a book journal three years ago. After 2020 and the pandemic I discovered TikTok, which my daughter had been on since it was Musical.ly but I had never tried. There I discovered a whole world of things I’d never done, and one was the book journal.
The first one I used was by All the Rad Reads and was called the RAD Reading journal. I really liked it. It had a plain brown cover, which I decorated with book-related stickers, and was set up with different pages and trackers inside. It’s still available on Amazon for $10.99 (last time I checked) and it’s a great starting point so you can get an idea of what keeping a book journal involves. (No affiliate links in this post, I just liked it and thought you might too.)
In my second year, I created my own journal in a blank book, and kept using that in my third (current) year by recopying the charts and trackers I liked. I like making up my own because I can keep testing different things, and each year I add things I’d like to try and get rid of things that seemed like a good idea, but I didn’t keep up with them.
I also keep a separate book of “books I’ve read” which is just a yearly list of the titles and authors of every book I read each year. At the start of the new year, I turn to the next fresh page, write the year at the top, and start counting again. It is not organized so I have fantasies about transferring the list to a spreadsheet where it could be sorted by author or book or whatever I wanted but for now it’s just a running list.
If you’re interested in keeping a book journal of your own there are probably hundreds on the market, but creating your own is just as much fun since you can pick the blank book to use and what to include in it. Here are some of the pages I’ve had in my journals over the years, what worked for me and what didn’t.
Year One – A RAD Reading Journal sections – the book pages are all gridded making drawing charts that much easier
My Goal for this Year – how many books you plan to read, with plenty of space to draw a chart you can fill in as you go. My goal every year is 100 books, and I did not make it the first year.
Stats (per month) – books, pages, physical books, library books, audio books, BIPOC authors, Gender, with two blank rows for you to add your own tracking. Mine were Authors with Disabilities, and Kindle books. I also changed Gender to AAPI authors. I am always trying to diversify from my own white, lower middle-class upbringing and experiences.
What I Read Month by Month – a place to tally the number of books read each month, possibly using the same colors as your rating chart to mark them down
Genres – A place to tally each book by genre (Biographies/Memoirs, Classics, Essays/Short Stories, Fiction, Food, Mysteries/Thrillers, Nonfiction, Poetry, Romance, Self-Help, and some blank spaces for your own genres. Mine were YA/Teen, Fantasy/SciFi, and Graphic Novels.
The Genres I Read – I Loved this idea, but messed it up in practice. The idea is a pie chart and at the end of the year you fill it in based on the genres you read. I don’t pie chart well apparently, but I may try it again next year.
Alphabet Reading Challenge – Try to read a book starting with each letter of the alphabet. This is one of my personal favorites, and I do it every year. I have yet to complete it.
A RAD Reading Challenge – Fill in the 9 squares and see if you can complete them all. The list was:
A book of poetry
A random library grab
A one-word title
A teenage fave
A book in your favorite color
A book by a Black author
A book longer than 500 pages
A book shorter than 200 pages
A backlist read from a fave author.
I love reading challenges, and may do a separate post just on them. You can be sure we’ll do one at some point!
5-Star Favorites – a place to list all the books you rated 5-stars
Hall of Fame Books – your top read for each month of the year
Some Authors I Love – list your top ten
Books I loved as a kid – list your top ten
My year in review – a section with a few specific categories to fill in:
The First book I read this year
The Longest book I read this year
Average book length in pages
The Shortest book I read this year
My Favorite read this year
The Last book I read this year
My year in review (continued)
Unread books I own in January (tally them up)
Unread books I own in December (same)
Library Books I checked out this year (tally)
Plus two blank blocks to create your own tallies. Mine were Physical Books Purchased this year and Audiobooks purchased this year
Bookstores Visited this Year
Libraries Visited this Year
Books Recommended to Me (place for Title and who recommended them)
Books to be read (the dreaded and loved TBR list)
There are plenty of blank pages and parts of pages scattered throughout the beginning section, and it ends with half the book blank with a “title” page stating “The rest of the pages are yours!” with some suggestions of what to do with them.
She also includes 15 Tips to help you read more, and 50 More Tips to help you read even more
In my blank pages I added some reading challenges, and a section with information and ratings of each book I read. I was bad at keeping up with it, but I liked the idea.
Year 2: Reading Planner
I printed out some pages from Etsy and online, and pasted them into my own blank book, and created some of my own pages based on my RAD journal.
I kept the “My Goal for this year” page and the grid. I like this one and it’s easier to keep up with than some tracking.
I tried a “Reading Tracker” where you track the number of pages read each day, assigning each page range a color, and made it to February 14th until I changed to to a yes/no “did I read today” tracker. That lasted to February 27th.
Favorite Books of the Year with a square for each month. That one I still like to do. Although I just noticed December was left blank…
Book Shelf – a shelf of books to be colored in as you read, and I write the title of each on the spine. It has cats and plants.
Alphabet Reading Challenge – every year, I get closer
Book Releases – a list of books you plan to buy when they are released (Title, author, release date, price)
Books To Read – TBR!
Books to Buy – kind of self-explanatory
Favorite Quotes – a great idea, but I only filled in one of the four spaces
I also included pages for
- the book clubs I follow (in my case Fantastic Strangelings, and Nightmares from Nowhere, both bookclubs by the Bloggess, Jenny Lawson, who has never steered me wrong about a book rec. Seriously.)
- My Year in Review from the RAD journal
- A Bingo Reading card
- Favorite Authors with space to list your favorite books of theirs and books of theirs to buy
- The Stats page from the RAD Journal
- The Genres page from the RAD Journal
- An Audiobook challenge, slightly edited from the original
- The Book Info and Reviews section which once again failed miserably but was fun while it lasted
2024 – Book Journaling simplified
This year I was feeling less inspired to keep a book journal at the start of the year, although I did get back into the swing of it as time went on, so I decided to keep it minimal. I only included the following:
Reading Goal and grid
Fantastic Strangelings Book Club
Alphabet Reading Challenge
Nightmare from Nowhere Book Club
2024 Favorite Books (a square for each month)
Book Shelf (see above, books I’ve read)
Authors to Read – not sure I’ll keep this one next year, but it is a handy place to remind myself of who I like
Books to Read – TBR again
Library Savings – I tried to track all the books from the library that I read and what the cover price would be for each if I’d purchased. I stopped in May because I take out a lot of books from the library and kept forgetting to keep track. It did show me it was a LOT of money saved though.
Fantastic Strangelings Book Bingo (a book challenge)
The Novel Neighbor Summer Reading Bingo ( a book challenge)
For next year, I’ll probably include many of the same things but try some new ones too. The best thing about book journaling is you don’t have to do any particular thing. You can do whatever you want. And if something doesn’t work for you, stop doing it. This is for fun. It’s not an assignment!
Happy journaling!
Lara
August 31, 2024
2024 Lara Johnson