This is a bit different from your usual Stuff We Like posts, mainly because I’m on the hunt for a reading journal or planner, but can’t find anything that directly fits my needs. However, I hope I can harness the power of the Bitchery to help me!
I know we yearly feature our Reading Tracking Spreadsheet, but I don’t do well with digital resources and often forget! I’m also not interested in bullet journals because I’m jealous of the carefully drawn journals with stickers and calligraphy and makes me feel bad about my own bullet journalling.
Instead, I’ve grabbed some popular reading planners from Amazon and listed what I like and don’t like. Hopefully someone out there uses or knows about planner that will match what I’m looking for!
…
Kunitsa Co. Reading Journal, $25
Pros: It’s super cute! I like the pale, minty green. I love the habit tracking section.
Cons: The decorative pages that you fill in are a no-go for me. I don’t want to color any images or design elements. I also feel like the book pages have too much info:
I don’t often record or care about quotes, summaries, or general book information while reading.
…
My Reading Life, by Anne Bogel: $15
Pros: Another great habit tracker!
The book pages seem more concise. I think the added “TBR List” section of books I want to try and get-to in the year could provide some good direction.
Cons: Still too much information to fill out. Any section that asks me to list memorable quotes will always be left blank.
I also hate pages that list book reading suggestions. It feels like filler and I have access to Google should I need recs on a specific topic.
…
Moleskine Book Journal, $27Pros: Moleskine is really good quality and I’ve used their journals for note-taking in college. I like the large space for notes and probably has the best layout for recording book information out of the ones here.
Cons: The alphabetized tabs is a weird choice and I can see myself filling up one section rather quickly and then having little to no books to record for another letter.
…
Letterfolk Book Passport Journal, $10
Pros: The size and format make this easy to just tuck into any of my bags. I love the extra pages that have reading challenges for genres.
Cons: Some of the extra pages I will never use, like “The Literary Bucket List” that I may want to repurpose. Still way too much information on the book pages that I wouldn’t care to fill out.
…
I love a habit tracker and a concise place to record what I’ve read and a few quick thoughts. Anything I can take with me and isn’t too bulky is a big plus. Definitely not interested in creating things myself with a bullet journal because that’s a commitment hurdle I’ll never get over.
Do you have a reading planner or journal you love? Give me all the recommendations!
Not a recommendation but a re-emphasis: do not use a pre-alphabetized journal. Whether you sort by book title or author’s name, you will fill up the B’s, M’s, S’s, and T’s before you know it, and eventually you’ll have to break down and start using all the empty pages under O and Q for books that don’t actually belong there. Speaking from experience, lol.
The exam anxiety some of these caused me was intense. “That’s not what I studied!”
I overwhelmingly prefer “functional” to “pretty,” so I’d be tempted to order a custom rubber stamp with just the desired fields and use it on a nice blank journal rather than waste all that space.
I like the Moleskine, despite it being alphabetized, which I’d frankly ignore when filling it out. I was browsing around at a stationary shop a couple of days ago and I noticed that particular Moleskine. And then I noticed it 29EUR, and I was like “nope”. Maybe I’m cheap, but that seems too expensive, especially for a product I don’t love 100%. Plus I can stretch that 29EUR very nicely when buying ebooks.
I ended up using parts of my existing planners, plus some added pages (Discbound and ring binder planners are good for this) to get the things I wanted to record, without all extra stuff.
One page for all the books I’ve read this year. One for a, optimistic, year tbr. One for upcoming releases. Plus checkboxes for “read” and “read 1 hour” in my mental health/wellness planner, what I read that day in the monthly layout of my journaling planner, and thoughts on what I’m reading go in the journal part. (Journaling planner is a standard horizontal planner layout. The MH planner is a lined vertical layout, which is really easy to turn into checklists with a ruler. (Not sure if any companies other than Happy Planner make that layout.))
Pros: I’m buying them anyway
Cons: Books read in previous years are in old planners
Anyway,these videos might be helpful for finding an actual reading journal
I think she goes through around twelve reading journals in a fair amount of detail between the three videos.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=yeGLfVZqWAc
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=hQbMIoOdpFc
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=XWXi3bx8Deo
I use the moleskin book journal and just ignore the alphabet tabs for the reason you listed.
Heh. I started using the Reading Tracking Spreadsheet this year and immediately ran into this problem. I just don’t pull out my laptop as much as I used to. I am almost always reading on my phone though so I started keeping a running list in a Note. I just paste/type in the info I need for the spreadsheet. So far, I have 3 months worth of entries that I need to transfer over but I have been faithfully keeping track.
@MaryK
I’ve used the Reading Tracking Spreadsheet for several years now and I access it through Google sheets on my iphone. I’ve had quite the learning curve mastering this version of sheets, but it’s pretty functional for tracking my book info. I have Google docs on my phone as well, but phone typing puts a cramp in my deathless prose.
As an aside for the Good sheets option, I actually use Google Forms to enter in my information. It’s linked to a spreadsheet so then I can go back and edit/play with data as I want.
As for paper reading journal, I actually use printable ones (or made modifications to printable ones). That way I can only print what I’m using.
Coloring Page (I have (at least) one of these for each subgenre I read and color code the titles based on the month read): https://acountrygirlslife.com/free-printable-bookshelf-reading-log-for-planners-bullet-journals/
For each month I use a basic reading log for a quick glance at my monthly reads: https://www.printabulls.com/?s=reading
Then I have a specific page for each book I read that has more information (I print it black & white): https://printabletree.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/01/Colored-Reading-Journal-Template.jpg
@PamG – I haven’t tried the spreadsheet on my phone though I know I should. My phone is fairly small and I tend to want to see as much of a doc as possible when using it. Maybe I should think of it as learning a new skill and give it a try.
I looked at a lot of reading journals, and eventually decided to just use a regular lined blank journal. In the top left-hand corner of each page, I write the title, the author’s name, the series & series number, and the publisher (because ARCs) on seperate lines. On the right side of the same page, I write REVIEW and READ on the first two lines, with space to add the dates.
The remainder of the space on each page is left blank for whatever thoughts I have as I’m reading and once I’m done. Depending on the book, I’ll give it a single page or a two-page spread. In one case, I had so many thoughts on a book-club book (including a sketch or two) that I used 4 pages.
Before I started keeping this journal, though, I did two simple things: I numbered all the pages in the bottom outside corner. (You can skip this if the journal comes with prenumbered pages.) And I left enough pages blank at the beginning to build a table of contents as I go, since it’s quicker to skim through 4 pages of TOC than 180 pages of journal.
If I wanted to add a habit tracker, I would look for an A5 printable, print it out, and glue it in, after the TOC and before the individual book pages. Printable calendars and other “fill-in” pages can also be glued or pasted in, as you wish.
I find that creating my own book journal this way means I don’t waste space on stuff I don’t need or want, but because I’m using a consistent format, it’s relatively easy to fill out.
Just here to say all y’all are way more organized and dedicated to trackingbreading than I am. I do have a Collection on my Kindle titled “to read next?” which I don’t necessarily use to pick a book to read next, but it helps me remember some books on my short list. I also put my current Kindle Unlimited books in a Collection so I don’t lose track of what I have.
I’m not really dedicated. I just want to be able to look back and see if I’ve read something already or when I think of something I want to reread be able to look back and figure out what the title was. I’m also hoping it’ll help me keep track of where I am in series I want to keep reading. I’m not a binge reader and I easily forget where I stopped. Sometimes I forget about the series altogether until I stumble over it again. It’s a useful tool for my aging brain.
I have several different wish lists on Amazon that I use to keep track of books I’m interested in. One is my “borrow list” where I stick KU books I might want to read sometime.
I’ve just been using the notes app on my phone for this purpose, because all I really want is a list of titles and authors in order, divided into months, so I can look back at the year and see where I’ve been. Plus, I always have my phone, whereas I might not have a specific journal with me when I finish a book, and if I don’t add a book to the list as soon as I finish I might NEVER remember. ^^;
Oh, I do use a couple of emoji to mark whether it’s a new book or a reread. And I started tracking computer games I finished too on the same list, with the little space invaders emoji.
I am old school (and older) and love pen and paper. Years ago I developed my own system using Levenger Circa products that still work for me. I can build a journal with exactly the number of pages I need and easily add or subtract pages because of the Disc binding system. The Junior size annotated ruled paper has a blank column on the left side for random notes and the rest of the sheet is ruled. I start my journals with a page that just is a running list, by month, of each book title/author and a simple code (i.e., KHR=Kindle Historical Rom; RS=(paper) Romantic Suspense). The following pages have the month/year, book read #, letter grade A-F, the category and main characters names jotted in the blank column. Then the ruled section has title, author, and pub date with my notes/synopsis/review/rants (whatever I feel like saying) below. Some books are short reviews and some run to several pages depending on book, or my mood at the time. At the end of the year, the journal is as long as it needs to be without extra unused paper. I admit this is not an inexpensive system but you can go as fancy or plain as you like (I tend toward plain) and Levenger periodically has good refill sales. The drawback, of course, is when I want to search for a book I read several years ago I have to flip through each journal’s front list page for a title — but sometimes that takes me into the journal and I end up re-reading other old entries for fun. I also try to do my journal entry soon after I finish a book before going on to next book, while it’s fresh in my mind. One year I got behind and it was a pain to catch myself up. I do use my notes on my phone for lists of my book club reads or book club TBRs/suggestions. I also use the Levenger “Jotlets” for a another system of keeping track of series read/to read that I can carry with me if I want. I just get a lot of satisfaction actually writing stuff down, vs typing. YMMV.
I keep a list of titles in the back of my regular day planner (so it’s a new list every year) and note whether it’s library, kindle, audio or owned. I keep a separate list for cookbooks, because I’m a weirdo who reads them recreationally. I mostly don’t bother with letter grade rating, but use stars and up or down arrows for books I have strong feelings about. I like the idea of a book journal but I too am never going to record memorable quotes or a synopsis. I track for my own curiosity, and to be able to say I read x number of books last year.
For the most simple (have I read this book?) journal, that is quick, easy to access, & visually appealing, I take a pic of each book as I finish it, and have these photos in an album on my phone, listed by year. And I read between 50-100 books a year, so I can skim the cover art faster than I can a list of titles…..
I run a bunch of romance book clubs on facebook and I designed this journal based on the stuff our group members like to track when reading. It is rather robust though.
https://www.amazon.com/Romance-Readers-Companion-reviewers-notetakers/dp/B09QP6Q8QN/ref=sr_1_2?crid=39QK0YPDMAKMK&keywords=holly+perret&qid=1658523915&sprefix=holly+perret%2Caps%2C124&sr=8-2