Wednesday, January 10, 2018

My New Reading Log (+ Free Printable Reading Logs!)

After joining the Modern Mrs. Darcy Reading Challenge and printing out all the lovely trackers that go along with it, I thought it would be nice to have printable sheets for my other 2018 challenges too. I tried looking online for a simple, blank printable reading list, but I couldn't find what I was looking for. So I went ahead and made my own for Julie's Newbery Challenge (that she's sharing over on her blog Smiling Shelves!) by fiddling around with a To-Do List template in Word:


Then I made even simpler ones for the 2018 Picture Book and Middle Grade Challenges, by basically just adding check boxes and numbered title lines to Becky's original lists:



At this point, I thought I was done. I already have a reading journal for favorite quotes and passages, so I didn't have any grand plans for making this into a big thing. But then Kate aka The Loud Library Lady shared her book journal on Instagram over New Year's weekend as she was making it and I was inspired! I didn't want to make one exactly like hers, but I figured if I already had some sheets ready, I could make some additional ones, 3-hole-punch them all, and create my own reading log journal in a pretty binder. Once I got this idea in my head, the project took on a life of its own!

I love all of the gorgeous (recycled!) binders by greenroom!

First, I thought it would be nice to add a log for my monthly Diverse Books Club reads, so I fiddled around with another Word template (this time a festive birthday list one). I left some room under each month's header to fill in the themes, made a wider column in the middle for titles, and a narrower column on the right to note the type of book (Adult, YA, MG, or picture book.)


Then I figured if I had a page for my online book club, I should have one for my in-person book clubs too. So I made a simple page for my main (YA) book club. As well as a page for my public library's book discussions. The boxes here are pretty big which I figure leaves space for additional notations other than title if I want (format I read, who chose the book, etc.)

Yup, I already covered up an error!

Then I started thinking about how I struggled to come up with a list of 2017 year-end book favorites (and ultimately decided not to bother!) because my Goodreads account is so unwieldy with all the picture books I read. I absolutely still want to record them there, but it was just too annoying to sift through everything at year's end. I thought about how burnt out I was on all of the digital logging I did for the 2017 Beat the Backlist Challenge, but how, on the other hand, I really enjoyed recording the old-school way in a notebook for the Newbery Challenge. So I decided to create a sheet for each of the things I would like to track in 2018. It may not work for everyone, but there is just something about sitting down with a pen and paper to log my reading that sounds so appealing to me right now.

I settled on a basic table color-coded for various things I'd like to track. So I started with book type. I have more blue pages just like the one below for Young Adult Fiction, Adult Fiction, Chapter Books/Early Readers, Graphic Novels/Comics, Non-Fiction, and Poetry/Novels-in-Verse. Poetry and graphic novels could cross over with other categories, but I decided to keep those separate. Each book will get recorded only once on the blue sheet it fits best.


Then I have purple sheets for format. These are where I will log each book read as print, ebook, or audiobook format.


Next I have pink sheets for source. I am only differentiating between books borrowed from the library and books I own. If you are a blogger who reviews a lot, another source could be NetGalley or publishers, but I'm not in the reviewing game right now. If a book I own is one I won in a giveaway or is an old ARC leftover from when I was reviewing more, I will make a note of it, but I'm not giving them their own sheet. I've also printed separate "from library" and "from our collection" picture book sheets because I don't want those mixed in with my other reading.


Next up, I have a few orange sheets to log recommendations. For now, I only have specific sheets for Read-Aloud Revival and Orange Marmalade since they are go-to resources for me. And then I have a more generic sheet for recommendations from bloggers with a column to note which blog (or podcast) the recommendation was from -- as best as I can remember!


And finally, I have some Misc. green sheets to record specific kinds of books I'm interested in reading more of this year. I may make additional categories, but for now these include, Classics, Books About Books, Short Works, and Re-Reads.


In addition to all these book logging sheets, I also have simple sheets to keep track of my monthly book budget.


And since I spent so much time on this little project, I decided to share the files in case anyone else might find them useful. Now I have the design and formatting down, it's quick and easy to make additional pages, so if there is a category you would like to use I don't have listed, leave me a comment and I will make up some extra pages to share :)

Click the links below to download and/or print the PDFs!
This is my first time doing this, so let me know if there are any glitches and I will try my best to fix them :) And please be aware when printing that some files ended up with an extra page at the end with just a header  -- I was going cross-eyed trying to fix that particular glitch and just decided to leave them as is :)

BUDGET

BOOK CLUBS

BOOK TYPE (blue)

FORMAT (purple)

SOURCE (pink)

RECOMMENDATIONS (orange)

MISC. (green)
Books About Books {2018} PDF

I'm also going to use this binder to stash printouts of booklists from around the web including awards and other "best of" lists I'm interested in, but this is long enough already, so I'll share more about those in another post!

12 comments:

  1. This is a great idea. I'm going to do a bullet journal post for the pages I use in my bullet journal to track bookish things.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thanks Rachael! I will have to check it out :)

      Delete
  2. You made a reading bullet journal! How fun! I love all the colors. What a great way to keep track of your reading for the year!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Huh, would you look at that -- I guess I did! This is totally my speed for a bullet journal though -- I don't have the patience (or the talent!) for the gorgeous artistic ones I see around the web!

      Delete
  3. Oh this is AMAZING! I tried to do a reading journal last year and ended up failing unfortunately (I always get distracted😭) But I love how you've organised this!! Best of luck with it. :D

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thanks Cait! I got so distracted when I first started a reading journal for favorite quotes -- but I eventually got the hang of it. But they're not for everyone :)

      Delete
  4. Love your reading journal and specially all the colors :-) I don't do a reading log but I write in my journal what I read ;-)

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thanks Elin! I love how different things work for different readers :)

      Delete
  5. Oh my goodness! These are GORGEOUS.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thanks! I hope you get a chance to try some out :)

      Delete
  6. I love everything about this post! Lists are my jam. I started a bullet journal this year and will use some of these as inspiration. Thank you!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thanks Kay! I'd love to see the bookish parts of your bullet journal if you are considering sharing on your blog! :)

      Delete

I'd love to hear what you think :)