I started this post over a year ago. I jotted down a few notes and never returned to it. I was wondering about how my reading life had changed since I retired. Now a year latter I am searching for ideas and here it sits. The questions I had set for myself were:
- how has my reading life changed
- has the time when I read changed
- how do I chose books
- I am I reading more digital books or regular books
I decided to pull out my reading journal and look at my reading over a longer period of time. I have been keeping track of the books I read since 1997. Although, there is a confusing note in the front cover that says I began recording the year I had cancer which was in ’94. No matter which year I was young, raising a family, teaching full time and life was busy with its highs and lows but I recorded the book titles and sometimes the authors.
The first year I recored only the adult books I was reading and there were six of them. Titles like The English Patient and Snow Falling on Cedars. The following year was the same – six adult books. Then I decided it would be nice to include the children’s books I was reading since that is really where my focus was. (although, I note I still did not include the picture books and I am sorry about that.)
When teaching elementary I was always reading books for my classroom. They were books I would teach with and books that my students might want to be reading. The number of books per year increased and I lost track of the years until about 2002. The book titles are there but not the years, not the authors and I did not mark if they were kids or adult. It was just a lot of books.
The titles included things like: Harry Potter book 4, Poison Wood Bible, Anil’s Ghost, Empire Falls, White Noise, Portrait in Sepia, Witness, Stardust, Nanny Diaries, Artemis Fowl, Belle Teal, Coraline …
I can see I got caught on certain authors like Kingsolver, Gaiman, Isabel Allende, Paterson, Karen Hesse and Lois Lowery.
Through out the early 2000’s my notebook is a mess – books are written down, the months I read them in were sometimes there, most times I was marking if they were adult or children’s but not always. I was reading about one adult book and three to four children’s chapter books each month – more in the summers.
By the late 2000’s I begin to see non fiction books listed but not many. Up to this point everything I recorded was fiction. I did not record the hundreds of teaching books I read or the garden books or the environmental books. My list to this day is still mostly fiction. Why, I wonder, were these left off? Again there is the little bit of longing – wishing I had recorded those non fiction books – at least the garden and environmental books would be interesting now as I refocus my reading away from teaching.
There is a note for the year 2014 – that I had stopped recording for awhile during the time my mother passed away. It says I was reading not recording and my neighborhood book group had fallen apart. That year I had listed over 77 books. There is also a note at the beginning of 2016 that the total number of book recorded was 807 – missing all the picture books and non fiction. There were times I was trying to fill in the books I had forgotten to record and to mark books that I had reread – there are always books we were return to for whatever reason. I counted those a second or third time.
In 2015 I formed a new book group that included folks that I had taught with or worked with at our school districts main office. These were all retired folks. It started small and now there are about 10 of us who meet once a month. My book list now included a note of which books were read for my book club and I am more careful about marking which month we were reading each month.
The number of children’s book begins to decrease since I am no longer teaching and the adult books have increased. Now as we move through 2020 and 2021 there are very few children’s books or they are young adult books that are cross-over books to adult reading. I have started creating a list of non fiction reading since it is still not included in my journal. I also want to begin a list of board books and picture books so that Little Man (think grandson) will also have a list of the books he has heard over time here at our house.
This walk through my reading journal showed me what I was missing in my records. (I have never been good at recording things on a regular basis.) I still wonder why I did not list the non fiction reading – a big error on my part and one that needs to be fixed. I also noted that I have gotten lazy about recording things in my paper journal when so many of the books I read now are on my e-read. Another error I want to fix.
As to reading time – I still read mainly at night since day time reading right now is all board books with Little Man.
I choose books the same way I always have searching book lists, listing to pod cast, talking with friends, browsing book stores (well not now but that will return soon I hope).
And last – yes I am reading almost all digitally now. When I started this journal there were not digital books to be read. When they became available and easy to get from the library I made a promise to myself to not add more actual paper books to our over filled bookshelves. We are working to clean out the house over the next few years with the hope of not leaving a house full of things for our children to sort through. Although I must say many of my missing books are now either at my daughters house or in New York with my daughter in-law. They are both great readers as well. Glad they have them.
So do you have a reading journal? For that matter do your students have a reading journal? (my students always kept a reading journal. I wonder if any of them kept it going?) If you have one is your journal in a paper notebook or digital notebook? What do you record and do you have special labels as you enter your books? (adult, children’s, book group choice, non fiction/fiction, month read, author, date published)
There is so much to think about or maybe it can be as simple as when I started – a year and a list of book titles. Happy Reading!
Words from JL 
Joanne, I love this post! You’ve definitely inspired some reading habits and journals slices for later this month. While I was typing this, I glanced at your About Joanne Toft blurb. I think you should add “read” to the list of things you do.
I enjoyed this journey through your reading history. It is interesting to what kinds if patterns emerge. I have never kept a reading journal. Don’t know why.
I’ve never been able to stick with a reading journal, but I’ve always thought it sounded like a valuable way to record thoughts and time. You demonstrate that value here. So fun to look back.
Joanne, this post is delightful. We have similar tastes in books and in how we find them and in the slow realization that we have too much stuff in this house. I wrestle with letting books go. . . .
I’ve tried to have one notebook for my book reading and thinking about books, however, I found that my reading life wove into my writing life which wove into my teaching and living life, so now everything weaves together in one notebook. It’s impossible for me to separate it all. By the way, I’ve just listened to a podcast on Braiding Sweetgrass and am pondering on needing to read this book. What do you suggest? Was it worth the read?
Shari – I have struggled with the issue of different notebooks but have decided to keep then separate for now. So there is the reading books list, the garden notebook, the personal journal, a nature journal that will be shared with my Grandson and my drawing notebooks. It is all a bit much! I loved Braiding Sweetgrass and also read her Gathering Moss book. The Moss book is really for plant nerds but I have enjoyed both. I have gone back to Braiding sweetgrass several times to read parts again. I would give it a try and see what you think.