Keeping a Reading Journal

Notebooks seem to be having a moment. And as booksellers of analogue books, we fully support this. I have been keeping notebooks regularly for many years and I am almost never without at least two notebooks: an A6-size notebook and a small pocket notebook. The pocket notebook is something I like to think of as my workbook in which I capture ideas and information in a very haphazard way. There are meeting notes, questions, pros and cons lists, furniture measurements, even ISBNs. The A6 notebook is the textbook where I write in complete sentences. There are ideas, reflections, recounts, juxtapositions, along with a running log of my day, a bit like a bullet journal.

I have two other journals that stay at home: a B6-size journal and an A5-size journal. The A5 journal is my long-form writing journal while the B5 is a reading journal in which I write about the books I read.

I do not journal WHILE I am reading a book. I tried that before and found that it disrupts the flow of reading too much. What works for me when reading books is to make annotations in the margins, underline phrases, put question marks on words I don't know (that I will look up later), and write general observations along the way on the empty pages at the front of the book – usually the title page. Everything is done in the book itself, not somewhere else like a notebook or phone as that would take me out of the flow. When I have finished reading the book, I review my annotations from the very first page and write my thoughts into the reading journal in page order. I also write quotes from the book, definitions, and some contemplations and extrapolations.

I used to keep a digital reading journal with applications like Roam Research and Notion, and while these tools are very powerful and useful, I stopped when it began to feel like a chore. Writing in an analogue journal does not feel like a chore and I find it extends the joy of reading in a very natural way. When I write by hand, ideas flow better, and I feel that I can explore my thoughts in more meaningful ways.

This is why I encourage people to firstly annotate in the books they read, and secondly write in a dedicated reading journal after completing the book. I have found that the practice of writing a reading journal leverages on the catharsis one experiences upon completing a reading. Revisiting and writing out annotations in the reading journal help to synthesise concepts and therefore aid learning. You get more out of reading by writing.

Postscript: This essay was first written in my long-form A5 notebook. Fittingly, my notebooks seem to follow a progression in both size and usage. From the smallest to the biggest: pocket, A6, B6, and finally A5. And just to complete the picture for all you stationery geeks, I annotate with a wooden pencil or a mechanical pencil; while I journal with a 0.4mm Pilot Juice Up Gel Pen, most often in black ink.