Recording it: Book Journal

When I was twelve years old, I discovered my best friend. We were both home schooled, both preacher kids, and both loved books. She devoured them (I do believe she got an award one year for reading 380 books that year).

I’ve been giving a lot of thought to books lately. How everyone seems to think that because I love to read, I’m a fast reader. Quite on the contrary. It takes me on average 2 weeks, at least, to read a book — lately it’s been more like a month (hoping to reach my 50 book goal this year. I have 10 to go). I like to savor my books, not inhale them (well, that and I’m working two full time jobs (motherhood, wife), a part time job (book publicist), tutoring, and trying to write this thing called a novel).

But back to what I was getting at. My best friend had this really amazingly cool notebook. It was just a spiral bound notebook, but in this notebook . . . oh in the notebook she had written every book she had ever read. As a book lover and a list lover I was instantly smitten with this notebook.

I raced home and grabbed a spiral notebook (yes. I had one on hand. I always have a spiral bound notebook on hand. It’s a blessing and a curse.) and started recording all the books I read. For a while, every book earned a sticker on the front cover of my notebook (I was 12 stickers were very cool).

Now. It is very much habit. I love finishing a book so I can write another title in my notebook (which is now an old school composition book that I recovered with fun photos).

Not only to I write in my notebook, I also have to record it on GoodReads. Mainly so at the end of the year, I’ll get the year-end report that has all the books I read broken down into numbers. Super cool. Super fun.