Why I Keep a Reading Journal in a Cheap Spiral Notebook

In 2014 I bought a spiral notebook at the drugstore for a dollar nineteen because I kept forgetting which library books I'd already read. I'd check something out, get forty pages in, and realize I'd read it two years earlier. That first notebook was just a list. Title, author, date.

Twelve years and nine notebooks later, it has become something closer to a diary, and I can't imagine reading without it.

Why cheap matters

People give me beautiful leather journals as gifts and I never use them for this. A nice journal makes me feel like I have to write something worthy. A cheap spiral notebook lets me write "boring, quit on p. 60" and move on.

The spiral matters too. It lies flat on the arm of my chair, and when one fills up I don't feel precious about starting another. They're all stacked in a shoebox in the hall closet, a little bent and coffee-ringed.

What I write down

My format has grown over the years, but it's still simple. For each book:

• Title and author
• The date I started and the date I finished or quit
• Where I got it, library, friend, yard sale, church book swap
• One to five lines about what I thought, written the day I finish

That last part is the important one. I don't write a review. I write whatever I'm thinking. Sometimes it's "cried at the end, didn't expect to." Sometimes it's "the sister was the real story." Once it was just "why."

The books I quit

The most interesting part of the notebooks, it turns out, is the list of books I didn't finish. I started marking those with a little X in 2017, and now I can look back and see patterns I never would have noticed.

I quit almost every book that opens with a dream sequence. I quit most novels narrated by children unless the child is funny. I quit thrillers where the chapters are three pages long. I never quit books about families with too many siblings, apparently, which makes sense because I'm one of four.

Knowing this has made me a better chooser. I waste fewer weekends on books that aren't for me.

Reading my old notes

Every January I sit down with the previous year's notebook and read it front to back. It's a strange and lovely experience. I can see what was happening in my life by what I was reading. The year my husband was sick, it's all mysteries and cozy books, almost nothing serious. The year after he recovered, I read three long Russian novels in a row, like I was celebrating.

I also find books I loved and completely forgot. Last January I found a note that said "best book of the year, tell Carol," and I have no memory of the book at all. I checked it out again. It was still wonderful.

Start one

If you read regularly, I'd encourage you to try it. Get the cheapest notebook you can find. Write the title, the date, and one honest line. Don't make it pretty. In a few years you'll have a map of yourself you didn't know you were drawing.