I’m starting a brand new reading journal for 2024 - and I’m challenging myself to move up to a B5 notebook for the first time! It feels HUGE after years of being A5-exclusive! I like tracking my reads in a journal like this for a few reasons - partly so I remember the books I’ve read better, partly so I can play with stationery more, and partly so I can share my favourite reads with you and talk about books on the internet with other people who like books! There’s no right or wrong way to do this - so here’s my way, at least for now.

Cover Spread

As always - no, you don’t need a cover spread - but I love to have them! They’re a great way to mentally set the tone for your notebook - while you’re having fun setting up a pretty page, you’re subconsciously preparing yourself to use the book for its intended purpose.

I’ve deliberately gone for a very fantastical colour palette - purple, green and gold - with fantasy-themed stickers for my 2024 reading journal’s themed pages. I read a lot of fantasy books, so using crowns and castles and potion bottles as motifs felt so right! I’m also just not that into brown, which seems to be the most popular choice for reading journals, so I wanted to make sure there was a colourful option out there for my fellow not-so-into-brown readers.

Index & Rating Reference Pages

Is it bold of me to include an index page in a journal that doesn’t have numbered pages? Probably! But I figure it’s not that much work to add page numbers myself as I go. Last year in August I started adding monthly setups to my reading journal - a few pages at the start of each month where I can track reading stats, feature book club books, and set reading intentions for the month ahead. I’m planning to use this index to keep a page number reference of those monthly setups - it will also help me learn, on average, how many pages and spreads I need to set aside for each month!

The rating page is a new one for me. I’d seen some readers include systems that break down their own star rating guides. I’d been planning to do the same - until I watched JashiiCorrin’s video flipping through Monica of @bibliophilebynight’s reading journal, which introduced the idea of the CAWPILE rating system to me. Originally invented by G of Book Roast, this is a much more measured approach to reviewing books that has the user rate the book out of ten across seven categories (characters, atmosphere, writing style, plot, intrigue, logic and enjoyment) then average those scores out to find a single number, which can then be translated into a star rating. Up until now I’ve just been rating books based on the vibes, so I’m excited to try using something a bit more structured - especially in relation to my book bracket spread - which you’ll see soon!

I knew it was going to take me a while to get the hang of using the CAWPILE system, so I’ve added the rating page as a reference I can flip back to as I need it - and so that future Erin can work out what she’s looking at if I pick up my journal when I’m 65 and can’t remember what it all means!

Books Read Spread

This one’s so straightforward - just a double-spread, Dutch-door layout I can use to write down all the books I read in 2024. It’s actually the same layout I used for 2023 and it worked well for me - but I ran out of page space in my last journal for this and ended up adding a tip-in page to accommodate the rest of the year! I’ve factored that in this time with the Dutch door - the smaller page I cut down to allow the decoration to show around it.

I’ve seen other people make these pages SO impressive by including the tiny book covers for all of their reads but I’m a bit too lazy for that!

Reading Goal & Anticipated Reads Pages, Series Tracker Spread

These are all tracking pages of some kind, so they felt right grouped together!

My goals page is a simple one that I think will be visually striking by the end of the year (and hopefully by achieving the goal!) I’m aiming to read 100 books in 2024. I got the idea for this tracker from Emily from Planned and Planted’s reading journal blog post on the A&O blog, who I believe got it from @danicainpages. It’s just a simple box for each month, with space to swatch a different colour for each book read in a different month. I’m planning to match my colour swatches to my monthly themes!

My goal for 2023 was 60 books, and I hit that goal in September and ended up at 85 books read by the end of December. It was around August/September that I started getting into borrowing audiobooks from the library, which greatly increased my reading since it completely removed the barrier of having to buying books before I could read them - and your girl loves spending less money - so I think 100 books might be a reasonable goal for me in 2024! Having said that, please don’t compare your own goals or typical reading stats to mine. It’s totally acceptable to read three books, or 40 books, or 268 books, or even no books at all - reading is not a competitive sport!

The Anticipated Reads page is a small calendar layout with space for me to list the titles of any books that will be released in 2024 that I’m looking forward to. When I’m setting up my pages for the coming month and thinking of which books I might like to read and place on my monthly “maybe next” page, I can flip back to this page and see if there’s anything on my anticipated list I should include!

And of course, my series tracker - a place to keep tabs on the series I’m part of the way through, and the order of the books so I know what to read next. I’ve included the series I’m planning to continue with in 2024, and I’ve left the right page blank for now so I can add new series as I start them! I’ll actually go in with the super-fine 003 Pigma Micron pen and add the book titles under each box too so I can remember which box represents which book - sometimes there are novellas in between books that need to be noted as well!

Book Club Spreads

I’m so excited to be part of two book clubs in 2024! One is the Literary Ladies - a very chill social book club with some friends. We read approximately a book each month, although we don’t stick too strictly to that timeline, and when we’re done we catch up for lunch and chat about the book. It’s the most fun, and we all like very different things in our books, so we’ve all got to read outside our comfort zones a lot more since we started this!

The second is my very own digital book club - the Page Mages. It’s run through my private channel members Discord server, and is only available via my Youtube channel memberships to Handlettered Heroes level members. If you’d like to get involved, you can become a member here! We also read a book a month, although the structure is much more firm. I’m planning to allocate books a little bit in advance so members have time to get their hands on them before the month starts, and this page will help me do that!

Book Bracket Spread

I’ve seen so many other reading journal users do this, and it looked like fun! The idea here is that you choose a favourite book from each month and pit them against each other to determine your “favourite” book of the year. It’s not a surefire system though, at least as far as determining books that aren’t the number 1 read - but I’m not looking for scientific results here, just an enjoyable experiment!

What I like about THIS book bracket, over some of the others I’ve seen, is that most books (though not all) get two shots at moving to the next round. January goes against February, but then February also goes against March. Then March goes up against April, and April also gets a shot at May’s book. It’s not a perfect system - it does have to be split down the midyear point to work on the spread this way, so June and July won’t get to battle it out. In fact January, June, July and December will all only get one entry while the rest of the months get two - but put simply, I don’t care. It’s a bit of fun and I’m excited to see how it pans out! The CAWPILE system will also help me make less emotional decisions here - the book with the highest CAWPILE rating will be the book that makes it into each round.

Maybe Next - My Version of TBR Spreads

I’m a bit of a weirdo in that I don’t really read or buy physical books. I love the freedom of my Kindle, and I listen to lots of audiobooks - mostly from the library but some through Audible. I don’t really have room in my house for a lovely bookshelf anyway, as much as I love the look of a stately home library, so being a digital reader works for me! It also means I typically don’t have a backlog of books that I own and plan to read but haven’t yet.

Because of that, my Maybe Next lists aren’t books from my shelves that I want to get around to, they’re just lists of titles that have piqued my interest on Instagram or TikTok, recommendations from friends and books from authors whose other works I’ve enjoyed. When I’m looking for my next read, I can come back to my Maybe Next pages for ideas - but sometimes I don’t!

I don’t call these pages “To Be Read” or “TBR” as is the common terminology in bookish spaces, because that feels like WAY too much pressure. Just like how I keep these journals for fun and enjoyment, I read for fun and enjoyment, and I’ll often just follow that mood-reader feeling to choose my next read. If “I feel like a fluffy romance”, or “I want to lose myself in another world”, then that’s where I’ll look within my Maybe Next lists!

I’ve set up two spreads for this - the first one has three columns dedicated to specific genres (well, somewhat vaguely) while the second spread is so far undesignated. That may change as the year progresses!

Everything I Used to Make This:

• Archer & Olive B5 notebook from the Charming Picnic gift box - unfortunately no longer available
Here’s a Notebook Therapy B5 journal I think would be a great alternative
• Gold-gilded green scrapbooking papers *
• Purple stained glass window stickers *
• Grey & gold floral stickers
• Ornate letter stickers *
• Curved pointed tweezers *
• Alphabet letter stamp set *
• London Gifties cosmic bottles PET tape
• Bottles & Crystals stickers
• STICKII books & flowers sticker sheet: No longer available 😔
• Castle stickers - green & yellow *
• Chain strip stickers - green *
• Castle stickers - purple *
• Black & gold crown stickers *
• Purple metallic paint marker (for letter stamps) from this set *
• Gold metallic paint marker from this set *
• Quirky Cup Collective Practical Magic stamp set
• MT washi tapes in metallic green, gold and purple/pink - I can't find anywhere to link to these 😔 I got them in store at Kinokuniya
• Tombow dual brush pen in N79 warm grey
• Tombow dual brush pen in 620 lilac
• Sakura Pigma Micron 03 fineliner *
• Glue tape *
• Tombow Mono Graph mechanical pencil *
• Vintage scissors *
• Floral acrylic ruler *

* = gifted

My New B5 Reading Journal