Does anyone keep a reading journal or reading log?

[TechWife]

I take notes on many books I read and have many notebooks prompted by my reading of The Well Educated Mind several years ago. However, I don't take notes on every book I read and I am looking a way to keep a simple yet meaningful written record of books I have read. I've just looked at many examples of reading journals online and none of them are exactly what I am looking for, so I am going to design my own. I think this will be more flexible for me as well - not every book is the same, so I won't necessarily want a record of the same information on each book.

This brings me to my questions:

For those of you who keep reading journals or reading logs, what do you include in an entry?

What is a convenient size? I am considering a Large Moleskine lined notebook. I use their notebooks quite a bit and am satisfied with their quality and flexibility.

Do you record your source for the book? Library, own, gift from John, borrowed from Jane

What do you record about each book?

So far I have:

title

author

date of publication

publisher

date read

rating of 1-5 stars

Summary statement - This is for one or two sentences describing the book

Memorable - This is a section where I can record quotes, comments about favorite characters, the writers style and anything else I want to note. I could also put comments in here like: good book club selection, Jane would enjoy this, great birthday gift for James.

I think by writing out each entry as they occur I will have space for each summary statement section and memorable section to be as long or short as the book lends them to be.

Is there any other information that you keep in your reading logs? Is there any information you didn't keep but later wish you had access to?

Thank you all - looking forward to gleaning from your ideas & experiences.

 

[Carol in Cal.]

I keep these for myself, not so much for posterity or whatever, so I tend to write the title, usually the author, and then a brief paragraph or two about the book's content and what particularly struck me about it.  Examples of that last part would be--I liked or resonated with this new idea, or I would love to know this character IRL, or the author is strongest when describing dialogue but weaker in moving a story along--in the manner of a Seinfeld episode, or this book is the 5th one I have run across on this subject and as such did not seem very original at all, or this is the best nonfiction book I read this year, or this book is unbearably trite.  Sometimes I follow that up with a description of the author's apparent premise and a critique of it, such as "The Corrections" seeming to have the premise that happiness is a zero sum game and is always available only at someone else's expense, which I disagree with because of 1) 2) and 3).  I also record when I finished this book.

I do this online in a word doc or similar location.  I would do a blog but don't really want to publish this.  I keep separate sections for fiction and nonfiction.  I don't do it all the time.  I read all the time but documentation goes in spurts.  For the longest time I was doing this mostly in the Notes section of facebook, and only occasionally published excerpts from the long documents that ensued, but facebook recently eliminated that feature so I'm not sure what to do now.

[Guest]

I do log certain books when there is a lot of information I want to remember and refer to again. But as far as just logging the books I have read, to keep track, I use Good Reads for that. 

I don’t use anything fancy; just a generic spiral bound composition book. 

[Pawz4me]

I keep a Google doc with a list of books I've read. Just the titles, so far simpler than what you're after.

[Kassia]

I use Goodreads to keep track of what I've read and what I want to read.  I rate most books, but not all.  I don't keep notes on the books I've read, but I should because I find that I forget much of what I've read.  😞  

 

[Jaybee]

This is interesting, and something I may want to do. For me, I only keep a list on a page in the back of my planner, listing title and author. I have also put a plus or minus sign to the side of a book if it is particularly good or bad.

[Granny_Weatherwax]

What I have done has morphed over time. After grad school, I would use one of the black and white composition notebooks. I would write the author, title, and any passages that held meaning. These journals were mostly for professionally related non-fiction books, scientific writings, etc.
When I began using a bullet journal, I would track author, genre, and rating and, sometimes, number of pages. No quotes. Four years ago I found Goodreads (from the Book A Week group here on TWTM) and began logging my reading there. In 2019, I ordered a fancy shmancy reading log from Amazon. It tracks everything - author, publisher, publication date, # of pages, genre, format, dates started and finished, source, inspiration, recommended to, plot rating, character rating, ease of reading, quotes, and a personal review. For the first year I did really well writing in all of the details. Now, most of the reviews are blank although I have filled in the other information. I guess I could print out the Goodreads reviews and tape them into the journal.

I need to go back to my black and white composition notebooks. I enjoyed carrying those around and writing quotes as I read them. I don't write quotes in Goodreads and it's the quotes I miss the most most; those little bits of wisdom, knowledge, or humor that touch my spirit while reading.

[vonfirmath]

7 hours ago, Carol in Cal. said:

I keep these for myself, not so much for posterity or whatever, so I tend to write the title, usually the author, and then a brief paragraph or two about the book's content and what particularly struck me about it.  Examples of that last part would be--I liked or resonated with this new idea, or I would love to know this character IRL, or the author is strongest when describing dialogue but weaker in moving a story along--in the manner of a Seinfeld episode, or this book is the 5th one I have run across on this subject and as such did not seem very original at all, or this is the best nonfiction book I read this year, or this book is unbearably trite.  Sometimes I follow that up with a description of the author's apparent premise and a critique of it, such as "The Corrections" seeming to have the premise that happiness is a zero sum game and is always available only at someone else's expense, which I disagree with because of 1) 2) and 3).  I also record when I finished this book.

I do this online in a word doc or similar location.  I would do a blog but don't really want to publish this.  I keep separate sections for fiction and nonfiction.  I don't do it all the time.  I read all the time but documentation goes in spurts.  For the longest time I was doing this mostly in the Notes section of facebook, and only occasionally published excerpts from the long documents that ensued, but facebook recently eliminated that feature so I'm not sure what to do now.

Did you lose all your Notes?

[alisoncooks]

I have a little 5x7 journal. I write the title and author - that's it. If I especially loved or hated a book, I might doodle a heart or make a note of it. I fit several entries on one page, so my current journal goes back to 2017. 

[Annie G]

My reading log is incorporated into my journal. Even if I don’t fill my journal, I start another every January.  It’s a snapshot of what my year was like, along with the other things in my journal, where I track things like travel, have my monthly calendar, some photos pasted in, etc. It’s like a bullet journal but more personal, I guess. I use a Leuchtturm 1917 for my journals. 
I record title, author, date finished, number of pages, category of book, and notes about it. often if there is a quote that resonates with me I’ll put it on its own page and add some artwork.  It’s interesting for me to go back later and see what quotes I felt drawn to.  I also have a page that is drawn like a bookshelf and I write title and author on a book when I’ve read it, then color it in. It’s a pretty neat visual to see the shelf fill up as the year goes, and also an easy way to see what I read in a year. 
I have a page with everyone’s name and that’s where I jot down gift ideas throughout the year. I’m scatterbrained enough that I’d never remember to look through my book notes to find ideas for gifts. 
I wish I read enough to dedicate a whole notebook to it!  

[Amethyst]

I also use Goodreads. But it sounds like you’re after something more detailed than me.
 

If you decide to do your own personal style, I would suggest to drop the starred rating system. So often, after reading a book, the starred system doesn’t work - I loved the writing style but thought the plot was meandering, or I loved the beginning but the ending ruined the whole book. If you’re going to do narrative entries, I would think the stars would be unnecessary 

[Carol in Cal.]

2 hours ago, vonfirmath said:

Did you lose all your Notes?

No, but I spent hours copy/pasting them into emails and sending them to myself.  It was cautionary for sure.  Also, for a while I wrote some articles for an online homeschooling blog, and some of them were lost forever.  So I don’t trust things I don’t control anymore.  I’m not completely sure I trust the emails, but it’s the most long term thing I have short of printing things out (horrors!).

[beezus]

I keep a reading log in a generic, unexciting composition book.  In the past I have tried to keep a reading journal with quotes and an analysis of each book, but it started to feel too much like a tedious school chore.  Now I write the book title and author's name.  This year I wanted to read books from around the world, so I noted what country the book was from.  That way it was easy to review the list and see what place I wanted to focus on next.  Just having the title and author written down is helpful to me, because if I want to recommend a book to someone, I can do a quick review of the list to jog my memory about the title and author.  Also, it helps me have a better idea about how much I'm actually reading during the course of a year.  I do sometimes run across a quote I want to remember, so I've been writing those down in a document on my computer.  Easier for me to search and find that way.

[TechWife]

8 hours ago, Annie G said:

My reading log is incorporated into my journal. Even if I don’t fill my journal, I start another every January.  It’s a snapshot of what my year was like, along with the other things in my journal, where I track things like travel, have my monthly calendar, some photos pasted in, etc. It’s like a bullet journal but more personal, I guess. I use a Leuchtturm 1917 for my journals. 
I record title, author, date finished, number of pages, category of book, and notes about it. often if there is a quote that resonates with me I’ll put it on its own page and add some artwork.  It’s interesting for me to go back later and see what quotes I felt drawn to.  I also have a page that is drawn like a bookshelf and I write title and author on a book when I’ve read it, then color it in. It’s a pretty neat visual to see the shelf fill up as the year goes, and also an easy way to see what I read in a year. 
I have a page with everyone’s name and that’s where I jot down gift ideas throughout the year. I’m scatterbrained enough that I’d never remember to look through my book notes to find ideas for gifts. 
I wish I read enough to dedicate a whole notebook to it!  

This is similar to what I’ve been doing this year, but my reading notes and lists are getting lost among everything else  in the notebook. I put a table of contents  on the inside cover but that takes up a lot of space and I run out of cover. I am also splitting my quilting projects notes out into their own notebook. I think splitting these two out will make my regular daily notebook more manageable. 

I think one notebook will take me about 3-4 years to fill up. 

[TechWife]

8 hours ago, Amethyst said:

I also use Goodreads. But it sounds like you’re after something more detailed than me.
 

If you decide to do your own personal style, I would suggest to drop the starred rating system. So often, after reading a book, the starred system doesn’t work - I loved the writing style but thought the plot was meandering, or I loved the beginning but the ending ruined the whole book. If you’re going to do narrative entries, I would think the stars would be unnecessary 

I think you have a good point about the star system. Thank you. 

[historically accurate]

I use Facebook. I have a google docs that has the author and title and date finished. At the end of every month, I publish my reading list with any thoughts on the books as a post on Facebook. Thoughts can be a quote I jotted down or my favorite or don't recommend anyone should ever read, etc. It sometimes starts a nice discussion on a book; sometimes I only hear crickets, but I can always find my reading lists. At the end of the year, I post my year's list, so I know to look at the end of Dec/beg of Jan for book titles read. 

I didn't keep track this year, and I miss it. So, 2021 I am back on Facebook listing my books. 

[Zoo Keeper]

I've tried doing a reading log before...

This new year will be THE YEAR that I keep it going.  Really.  😉 

I even have a bullet journal for it.

In the past, I tried putting waaaay too much info for each book, and I read many, many, many books.  Many.  It became a chore to remember and record each and every book. 

This year?  It will just be a chronological listing of the books as I read them, with title, author, and whether it is a new read or a re-read (I like to visit with old friends frequently).  That's it.   If the spirit moves me and I must put a quote or a note in, I'll do it, but absolutely no analysis is required.

[Beth S]

I was gifted a handmade lined journal, which I've used for 10 years as a reading log.
I love it.
It's divided by genre, & I list title, author, who owns the book (library? Kindle? Ours?)
And then 1-2 sentence summary.
For more complex books, I use an index card as a bookmark, & add notes to it as I read.
Then I insert the card into the journal.
This journal has become very precious to me, & I love looking back over the past 10 years of reading.
Enjoy setting up the moleskine journal. 
Having an actual logbook is much more meaningful to me than a Word document at this point.
I keep it simple so that I actually do it.  😉

[marbel]

I use Goodreads but I so wish I had kept a journal since I was a kid. Imagine looking back on all those years of reading! My kids do not keep records of their books even though I kept meticulous records of every single book when we were homeschooling.  

My husband brought this to my attention the other day. I'm not sure how he came across it, and I haven't signed up, but it's interesting. 

readng: the companion app for your bookshelf

https://beta.readng.co/?utm_source=joealcorn.co.uk

[JennyD]

I open a new Word document every January 1 and just keep a list of titles and authors.

[TechWife]

On 12/15/2020 at 10:09 AM, Seasider too said:

I keep a list of titles, authors and date read. I have been trained to write books reviews, so on the ones I feel extreme about (really loved or really hated), I’ll write a review, it keeps me in practice to do that. 
 

In your journal, you may want to include whether the book was fiction or non, and the genre. I included that on my kids’ reading lists as we home schooled (which I kept on a computer spreadsheet and printed annually for portfolios) and it was easy to see at a glance if we were reading a reasonable variety. Fiction of different sorts, biographies, poetry, you get the idea. 

This is a really good idea. I am hoping to read more fiction this next year, so it would help me see if I am widening my horizons. I tend to gravitate toward non-fiction, especially memoirs and theology.