What does a bookseller do when they are not in their natural habitat, the bookshop? Well, this bookseller spends a large chunk of their time off reading. The only downside of reading so many books (seventeen in the last month alone) is that it’s far too easy to lose track of what I’ve read. There are few things more frustrating than getting thirty pages into a book to find the characters and plot strangely familiar… I love to reread, but not by accident.
So I track the books that I’ve read in a reading log. In the past I used Goodreads for this — you can choose a reading target for the year, and reaching it gives a great feeling of accomplishment. But my laptop rarely connects to the internet any more, so I’ve switched to keeping a physical log, and posting reviews to my Instagram account using my phone. As a bonus, I no longer worry about missing my reading targets!
The tactile quality of writing the list by hand appeals to me. I keep it in my bullet journal so that it’s part of my daily life, always to hand. I can refer to it if friends ask for recommendations or my family want suggestions for gifts. I pull it out whenever we’re debating what to read next in our book club. My journal is pretty battered at this stage, and I’ve got my eye on a lovely new one…
Whatever method you choose, I highly recommend keeping some kind of reading log – being able to look back over what you’ve read is incredibly rewarding.