how to create a reading journal
alternatively titled: a tour through my 8 years of book journals with thoughts on what works, what doesn't, what pages i love, what data i track, and what i recommend overall
so you want to start a book journal, eh? you’re in the right place!
reading apps are abundant now (i’m loyal to my beloved storygraph!) but i am suuuuch a fan of tracking my reading with pen and paper with a new book each year. it’s old-school, it slows me down, it gives me such a cool record of my favorite hobby, and it’s genuinely so fun to create and update throughout the year.
first up — let’s go on a tour of all my book journals.
i’m going to show you where i started, what i used, what i tracked, and what things looked like. buckle up!
in 2018, i started my very first book journal. i called it a book bullet journal (such were the trends in 2018!) but it wasn’t very structured, it wasn’t fancy, and i didn’t keep up with it much.
in fact, the same softcover moleskine journal holds 2018-2020’s reading journaling, so it was a pretty humble beginning. i was trying to catalogue all the books i owned, and starting my journey of being more intentional about what i was reading (which started as a goal to read more books by women and people of color after realizing a LOT of my reading — especially non-fiction which i predominantly read back then — was by white men.)
here’s more of that journal:
