I love reading, but up until recently the idea of a reading journal didn’t tickle me. “It’s something I do for fun!” I thought. “I don’t need to track pages read or set goals and metrics around it!”

And I still feel that way - but I’ve read SO many wonderful books in 2022 that have drawn me in, and made me want to live in their world just a little longer, and my reading journal is how I’m going to do that.

Read on to see the spreads I’m including, or watch the video below to see it all come together! And if you’d like to know where I got any of the goodies I’ve used, you’ll find everything linked later on in this post! And if you’d like to talk books, I post about what I’m reading on my Instagram stories pretty often!

Since there are only 3 months left in 2022, I’ve decided to jump in and fill out these pages retroactively with the books I’ve read this year. I figure that will help me work out what I can tweak for my 2023 set up and make it work better! Keep an eye out for my “after the pen” photos below as well as some I took before I used the spreads!

Reading Journal Cover Spread

Does a reading journal need a double-page cover spread? Absolutely not. Is it fun to include one? Absolutely yes! And believe me, I have that much stationery - I’m always looking for places to use it!

I’ve gone for a pastel green, blue and purple theme with a mix of origami papers and washi tapes, which gives my initial pages a fun storybook kind of feel. My first instinct was to go for a dark academia, vintage kind of theme reminiscent of libraries and old universities, but the kinds of books I love to read are mostly fluffy romantic comedies, so it felt a bit at-odds.

Reading Log Calendar Spread

I already had a reading log in the beginning of my first bullet journal for 2022, and it has served me so well! I only track the title and author here, and I give each book a rating out of five stars so I can remember the ones I adored and might want to read again. I also add a little letter “a” for the books I listen to in audiobook format.

This spread will serve much the same purpose - except in a calendar format! I’ll track books by the month I finish them - not for any specific reason than that I’m curious to see if there’s a pattern to my reading or not. I’ll still be using that tracker in my bullet journal alongside this one for the rest of 2022, so I’ve left out the ratings system for now. For 2023, I’ll be leaving the reading log out of my overall journal and keeping all my book-related things here in their very own journal.

I’ve gone ahead and filled out the books I’ve read this year already - you can see this spread “after the pen” in the third photo below!

Reading Goal Tracker - “50 Books”

I don’t love setting myself a hard and fast goal, and I read a fair bit but I know there are much more prolific readers than me out there! 50 is a very comfortable and doable goal for me - I deliberately made it a bit conservative when I set it at the beginning of 2022 - and I’m already up to 39 so I was quite confident in adding this bookshelf-doodle illustrative tracker page!

The way this works is just like how I do most of my mood trackers in my regular bullet journal monthly themes. There are 50 books on these bookshelves (as well as some cute extra stuff) and each time I finish a book, I colour it in on the drawing. I’ve actually jumped in with watercolour this time, because I wanted to test out the page integrity of this notebook, but markers or pencils would work just as well! If you look really closely, on the after-the-pen photo you might notice I’ve also added a tiny number at the right end of each bookshelf - that’s the cumulative total of books from top to bottom and left to right, so I can keep track of the number I’m up to more easily.

“Maybe Next”: My Answer to the “To Be Read” List

Since reading is purely for relaxation and enjoyment for me, the term “to be read” has always put me off a bit. It feels like so much pressure - like these are books I HAVE to read, not books I WANT to read and GET to read and it’s not for anyone else but me. So even though this page serves exactly the same purpose as a traditional TBR, I’ve decided to ditch the name and instead call it “Maybe next?” It seems appropriate - a list of books I might want to read next!

At the moment I have stacks of saved Instagram posts recommending and reviewing books in a folder in my IG account, as well as screenshots from IG stories and even a notepad file with titles my friends have recommended, so I’m looking forward to having somewhere to collate all those recommendations!

I can already tell from using this page that I’m going to need it to be more than one page for next year! I’ve also split it into categories to make it easier to find a title that fits the feeling I’m wanting at the time I’m searching for my next read.

That’s Only Three Spreads. What Will I Do Now?

For the remaining pages for the rest of the year, I’m planning to set up spreads specific to the books I enjoy the most. Moodboards with images of items or moments that were significant to the story, my favourite quotes and my thoughts and feelings around the book and characters generally - this is my way of living in the world of the book for a bit longer, a bit of a “book hangover” cure. I saw someone do something like this for Mixed Signals by B.K. Borison - I wish I’d shared the post, but I saw it shared on B.K. Borison’s IG stories and it sparked a little “aha” moment for me. I’d also loved that book and thought “I want to do that too!”

I don’t think I’ll go back through the books I’ve read this year and set up spreads for them though. Partly because I’ve read SO many great books this year, it would take a fair bit of time! But also because I feel like I’d need to re-read them to really do them justice, and I can do that in the future anyway.

All the Things I Used to Make This Reading Journal Set Up:

Some of these links are affiliate links, which means I’ll make a small commission if you make a purchase using those links or my discount codes. It’s totally optional but it does help me out a lot, and I appreciate your support so much!

• String & Space A5 Star Dot Grid Journal *
• Sakura Pigma Micron 03 fineliner *
• Pilot Fude Masake brush pen in blue-black
• Origami papers from Daiso Australia - in-store only
• Tenohira Sakura washi tape 2 piece set *
• Silver Dream Catcher washi tape 2 piece set *
• Dreamland Violet washi tape 2 piece set *
• Delicate Floral Wreaths washi tape sticker set *
• Upper case letter stamps *
• Lower case letter stamps *
• Artistro brush tip paint markers *
• Square landscape stickers
• Corner stamps *
• Pastel solid thin washi tapes set
• Faber-Castell watercolour paint set *

*gifted

My Very First Reading Journal!