This time last year I’d never heard of Reading Journals and I only discovered them by accident whilst scrolling through YouTube.
I’ve loved books and reading for as long as I can remember. So when I discovered bibliophiles doing their set ups for the coming year, I was fascinated.
What were they doing? How come I’d never heard of them, or come to that, thought of it myself?
After watching lots of videos by different people, I found myself mesmerised. There were so many different things one could do. Some journals were large, others small, and all with a wide range of ideas, and magical hints inside.
In December 2022, I went out and bought an A4 spiral pad. I then began chooseing what set-ups I’d like, and which would be fun to do.
Some, I thought I would use, but didn’t, or they didn’t work as well as I’d hoped. But that was okay. It’s made my 2024 one even more fun to set up. This time, I’ve a much better idea of what I want.
This is a list of some of the pages I have with a few photos below.
- A list of each book I read with start and finish dates. I also included columns to show where I bought it, whether an ebook, paperback, or audio, genre, author, series, star rating. (Not in that order.) This year the column titles will be set up better as I didn’t really know what I wanted to include that would be useful.
- Book Battles – favourite book of the month, of the quarter, and finally, my best read of the year.
- A-Z challenge. Titles starting with each letter of the alphabet.
- My own challenge: A book set in the city I was born. An author with the same first name. A cover that is red. An author I know but never read. You get the idea.
- Let’s talk books – some stories moved me, and left a mark. This is a place I can write down why.
- DNF books. A few I didn’t like, so do not finish, and I’ve included why.
- A page for series.
- A page for books set in Wales where I live.
- I have two pages of collages from images I’ve cut from magazines. This year, I’ve been collecting images that either relate to books, or will be fun to include.
- A chart to break down of how many books I’ve read in the month.
For a book lover, like me, this is a great way to feed our passion.
If you’re interested, just put Reading Journal into the search box of YouTube. You’ll be surprised what comes up.
Because I review on Amazon, Bookbub, and Goodreads, I also have to keep a page to tick each column to remind me to do it. But also, Amazon doesn’t always post them. Sometimes the review gets stuck and it doesn’t matter how many times you press submit, it won’t publish.
In that case, I email Amazon Review Help and they push it through. Although, I still have outstanding books that never published despite several emails requesting it.