Book Journalling

Last year I started my very own book journal. I had been doing some journalling on and off for a while before that, mainly just book tracking. I use Goodreads but I’ve always been a paper kind of person and so I was buying all of these great book journals where I could track my books, and write little reviews. But the more I did it, the more I realised that while these pre-made book journals were great, there was always something that wasn’t in there that I wish it would have. So in 2020 I decided to create my own… it wasn’t amazing. Mainly just lists, book cover pictures and some notes for my reviews.

This year I’ve upped the stakes in my journalling. I bought a really good quality journal and I’m trying to be much more creative with it. I am not an artistic person, but I am really loving trying to be better with it. So here’s some of my spreads that I’ve done in my journal for this year.

Book Tracking

Instead of just a list of books split by month like I did last year, this year I decided to draw some bookshelves that I can colour and write the titles on the spines. It’s not the most creative in the world. I see so many of these where people have drawn little shelf decorations in as well. I am not that creative or artistic to be able to do that… but lines and curves? That I can manage. I actually love how it looks and I always love being able to colour in and add a new title to this spread after I’ve read a book.

Challenges

I absolutely love reading challenges. I fail at them miserably but I love setting myself challenges and trying to complete them throughout the year. I have around 4 challenges this year and each of them has it’s own spread. This is an example, for my series challenge. I have over 50 series that I have started and not finished. Around 25 of those, I only have the final book in the series to read. So, I’m trying to finish 21 series in 2021. I know, I know… it’s a huge challenge, and I’ve only finished 3 so far. But I love having this spread for it. It actually motivates me to read some more because I don’t wanna leave all of those boxes blank!

Reading Statistics

I am such a total nerd and I love having reading stats to look back on. So every month I make a page of statistics. These include genres, what age range it is, whether it was on my tbr, whether it was a novel or novella, whether it was a series or standalone and how many stars did I give them.

I love being able to look back at my stats and see patterns or what genre I was in the mood for that particular month. I love it.

Book Reviews

I love being able to have a page for each of my reviews. I always write them in my journal before I write them for the blog. They’re pretty much the same but the ones on the blog are probably a little longer as I pad them out a bit and add extra thoughts etc. Space is so limited in the journal.

I love being able to look back over these and I even bought a Sprockett so that I can print out the covers to make it look amazing!

Best Books Bracket

One of my favourite spreads this year is my bracket. I always do a monthly wrap up post with my top 3 books of each month, but I always struggle to think of what my favourite books of the year are. So this year I did this bracket, which I fill in with my favourite read of the month and this is going to help when I do my 2021 Wrap Up posts at the end of the year as all my favourites will be in one place!

So there you go, some of the work I do in my bookish journal. If you’re interested I use the Archer and Olive bullet journals in B5 size. I always struggled to find the right size for me. A4 was too big, A5 was too small, but the B5 is the perfect medium for me. These are such high quality journals and they are gorgeous!! You can check out the range here if you’re in the US or if like me you’re in the UK this awesome craft site here sell them also.

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