MobileRead Book Challenges discussion

In June I got myself a Leuchtturm notebook to keep track of my reading. I had monthly pages in which I kept track of the book I finished and on which days I did and did not read. I also made notes of the books I was reading for a while, but I tend to get so focused on note taking that I forget to enjoy reading the books.

I had initially planned to use a Traveler's Notebook for just the monthly and annual tracking I like to do. I watched various videos and looked at Pinterest for inspiration. It all looks very pretty, but very time consuming. Even if I can get myself to set it up I know I can't be arsed to keep it up and if I make one mistake I'll get demotivated.

But I saw on Etsy that they sell digital Book Journals, for notebook apps as GoodNotes. It has a lot of things I won't use (I'm not really into quotes), but you can rate books, write short reviews, keep track of challenges (though the are a set number of them), keep track of series, etc. I think I'm going to try one, they are all pretty much the same except for design. Who know, it might inspire me to figure out how to make my own template for next year.

Do any of you keep a book journal/tracker?

I have a Rhodia dot grid notebook that I've been using for a reading journal for a couple of years now. I just log books in it and then do yearly summary pages.

I include title, author, series if any, genre, number of pages, start and finish dates, where I got it (KU, library or, if bought, the price I paid), star rating out of 5, and a sentence or three with my thoughts on the book after reading.

My yearly summary includes totals of books and pages, how many by genre, how many from each source, and then a page where I write about the books or authors that stood out for me that year.

For 2023, I'm switching to a smaller format. I printed a booklet with the same info fields along with my in-progress series lists and I have that in my pocket-sized travelers notebook. It's such a convenient size and it's always with me. I figure I can always copy the info into the bigger one later if I want to keep that one going too.

GoodReads is my book journal. However, you both have me intrigued.

One of the things I've come to realize is that in my attempt not to add spoilers to my reviews, I am often vague to the point of having no idea what the book was about when I see the review again years later. I want to change that.

A journal will allow me to type out how I truly feel about my reading experiences.

I just watched a video for a free book journal, but it feels hella crowded and complicated. I would love one that would allow me to copy/paste or drag and drop a picture of the cover into it (without having to save the image first).

I'm probably going to obsess about this for a while now! LOL

This is the video: https://youtu.be/klSFj6fKJHw

And this is the site: https://adaptableplanning.com/2022/02...

I always want to write reviews, but I never do. Like Nyssa I don't want to put any spoilers in, but then it often difficult to write a proper review. I also tend to write very long reviews and in these digital book journal there isn't a huge amount of space, so I will have to be more to the point.

While I watched a bunch of Tiktoks and Youtube videos on physical book journal, I haven't watched any on digital book journal. So that's what I'll be doing between helping customers today.

One thing I noticed about the ready made book journals for notes apps is that they all have tracking by minutes/hours read. I don't read that way. I might read a little in the morning if I have a bit of time before having to open the store, I read between helping customers or when waiting for dinner to get ready. Only on Sunday morning I tend to read for a longer stretch of time, most of the time I can't really track my reading time.

Instead of using colour coded time labels, I might just fill in the pages read on days I read. That I should be able to keep track of.

I bit the bullet and got this, https://www.etsy.com/listing/11503172... (copy and paste it in your browser, )notebook.

It took a bit to get it to work, I'm not that savvy with GoodNotes.

I like it. I probably won't use a lot of pages, but it's nice that there are so many different ways to track my reading.

It looks nice! I was looking at one on Etsy yesterday as well. It was $10 and change. It looked overwhelming & intimidating!

Please keep us posted on the one you are using.

I know nothing about GoodNotes and have just started using OneNote because of work.