Musing Mondays – Keeping Track

Published on by Margaret
Musing Mondays

Today’s MUSING MONDAYS post is about recording your reading

Do you keep track of what and/or how many books you read? How long have you been doing this? What’s your favorite tracking method, and why? If you don’t keep track, why not? (question courtesy of MizB)

 I first started to keep track of which books I’ve read when I was about 10, when I simply listed them in an exercise book, but that didn’t last very long! For the last ten years I’ve attempted to keep a record but it was very spasmodic until 2006. I would intend to keep the list up to date but often went for months just reading books without keeping track of what I’d read. Then I realised that I’d be in the library, looking at a book and thinking I’ve read that – or have I? So I decided it was time to be more organised and I started a list in Word.

book-journal-03book-journal-04

I still record books in that way but I also have a Book Journal in which I note down the author, title, date and a very brief note of what I thought about each book that I’ve read since 2006. The benefit of this is that I can take it with me to check which books I’ve already read and to look up authors I’ve enjoyed. It also has a section to record “Books I Want to Read” – very useful!

I also list the books on this blog – see the tab at the top – “Books Read”. I’ve listed there the books I’ve read since 2007. Just recently I’ve added a section on the sidebar of the books I’ve read each month, but I’m not sure I’ll carry on with that – it’s just an experiment to see how I like it.

I suppose LibraryThing is also a place where I record what I’ve read. In that catalogue I’ve tagged the books I haven’t read “TBR” and rated some of the fiction that I have read.

It really is so easy to become (just a bit) obsessed by books!

8 thoughts on “Musing Mondays – Keeping Track”

  2. I started keeping track of the books I read in 2000 when I stopped working full-time and had more time for reading. The 1st year I read about 85 books and in the last 8 years have gradually increased that to about 185-200 year. Then I started blogging just a little less than a year ago, and I really enjoy doing that as well.

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  4. I think it is very easy to become a bit carried away … especially with such fun tools out there. There is something about keeping lists that appeals to me so I love tracking what I’ve read.

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  5. Thanks for sharing the pics of your book journal… it’s given me a neat idea for my new book journal, for next year! 😉

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  8. It *is* easy to become obsessed by books and I’m a fully-paid up member of the club. I do exactly the same as you… keep a list in a Word doc. and also keep a journal in which I list the books I’ve read by the month. Each month also has a page for books I’ve seen reviewed that I want to read, either by buying or by borrowing from the library. The trouble is it’s a bit heavy to cart around with me so what I really need is *another* smaller notebook…. Yes, definitely obsessed.

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