The Evolution of Science Fiction discussion

Do you keep a book journal, note things you want to remember in your copy of the book, or keep notes on post its? (Some way to remember elements of what you are reading)

No, never, so I occasionally need to reread or backtrack in a book to refresh my memory or check on something I may have missed.

No. Just like Stephen posted in message 2, I sometimes reread sections or refer to any earlier part of a book, especially if it's long.

I used to keep a notebook of interesting quotes, facts, new words etc gleamed from the books I read. The older I get the lazier though so it hasn’t been touched since 2022.

My last entry noted that Tricia Sullivan used the term grok in Dreaming in Smoke (a mini homage to Heinlein I guess).

I use Goodreads to keep my memories by writing reviews and I made several attempts to keep my reviews of short stories at a Google sheet, but when choosing whether to write something or spend the same time reading (I admit, I type slowly), I prefer the latter

Stephen wrote: "No, never, so I occasionally need to reread or backtrack in a book to refresh my memory or check on something I may have missed."

This is me, and in part, I gauge novels by how they stick in my memory. If a book doesn't stay with me, it's usually not remarkable. I might have given it 4* in the moment, but perhaps it's lower if I don't remember anything about it.

Oleksandr wrote: "I use Goodreads to keep my memories by writing reviews. . . " Me too. And at age 81, I need more memory joggers than ever, so I have begun using them and some notes I took in the Nixon era to make an annotated bibliography of my sci-fi and fantasy reading. It currently has more than a thousand authors and runs to 400 pages.

I’ve been logging the books I read for about 20 years, but only rating them since I began using Goodreads consistently in 2017. I only “review” a small fraction of the ones I read and rate, and the reviews are often just very short personal reactions. When I look at my old reading logs there are quite a few books I remember nothing about.

I knew a lady who did what Natalie mentions in her initial comment, kept notes on the characters and I believe on other aspects of her current read. She didn’t write reviews; I assumed she just wanted a reference for later in the book if necessary.

I keep a book journal to keep track of basic storylines in short story collections and a list of characters in books I plan to read the whole series. Occasionally, if a book has a really long list of characters, I'll make a list in my journal. I don't use the journal for every book

I've kept (or used to) a paper journal since, well, a long time ago. I used hardbound lined school notebooks, which I look back on now & then to refresh my memory. [to be con'd: urgent hone-do just rec'd}