You can color each book what month you read it. Green for January, Yellow for March, you get the idea. Gives you an idea on which month's are busier than others.
I have an old reading journal where I tracked books read with star ratings and wrote down book quotes for several years’ worth of reading that is just about full now, so I need a new one. In a separate blank notebook (that again, I wanted to keep for several years so I don’t have to copy things over again and again) I have a section for my TBR/backlog-every book I own but haven’t read, plus movies and shows I want to watch, with book series & TV series trackers as well. For many years, I’ve just written the books I read each month in my yearly planners, and kept track that way. I love watching set up videos like this though, which makes me *want* to have dedicated reading journals each year. I just know I don’t have the follow-through to keep up with trackers and such. When I’ve done bookshelf spreads, I usually mimic the color of the actual book cover when I color them. Fave genres: fantasy, sci-fi, & magic realism… and occasional Hallmark movie-ish no spice romance or Christmas reads. My favorite book in 2023 was “Nightfall in the Garden of Deep Time.” (Magic realism + romance + save the small bookshop Hallmark vibes all in one… with a dash of the artist’s journey/struggles of writers/creators to create. I tabbed SO MANY quotes that I loved).
Your journals sound so great and like they really work for you! Love that! I’m 100% going to have to look into your favorite book for 2023 - it sounds amazing!
Torey, This set up is beautiful! Thank you for sharing ❤ I am 63 years young and have been an avid reader for 59 of them and you have inspired me to start my 1st BUJO reading journal 🥰
I read primarily romance and had used a reading log for some time now. The reading log evolved a bit but I still consider my reading journal/planner/etc. my reading log. Anyway, a suggestion for the bookshelf color would be changing the pen to denote the genre; if you don't write the title, maybe add some spine decorations to denote the genre and/or if you owned it, borrowed it, etc. When I had a bookshelf page in my reading planner, I used colored pencils to denote the format and if I owned/borrowed it. Example: A romance novel with two white lines at the top and two white lines at the bottom to denote that it's borrowed/digital/etc. Maybe my explanation isn't clear, but I do hope it helps inspire you a bit.
I just started a Reading Journal this year. I am an avid reader and thought this was a great idea to track what I have read. I have been exploring many TH-cam videos on various layouts.
I color my book shelf books in how the spine on the actual book looks like. I only read physical books, but I make it look like my book shelf would look if I owned all the books I read. :~)
Hi Torey! I loved watching you set up your reading journal. Like you I don't have any "real life" friends who keep reading journals (or December Dailies, although I just found out the daughter of one of my stitching friends keeps a DD and is a reader -- so who knows?). I set one up last year and it was a complete fail! I'm not really into keeping all the stats, especially the ones I can find on Goodreads anyway. I am more interested in keeping notes on the books I'm reading, quotes from the books, and my thoughts/reviews, so I may try to continue with the same journal for 2024, but just with more of a monthly approach. I am not a romance aficionada, I confess, I'm more of a serious literature kind of a person, my guilty pleasure though, are cozy mysteries! And I'm in Krystal Idunate's book club, so I'm being exposed to lots of genres I probably wouldn't otherwise try -- and I'm liking them! Like fantasy and magical realism.
I love keeping track of all those things too in my monthly setups! I’m still trying to figure out if I want to keep my monthlies the same as I did in 2023 or change them up some. I do know I want to keep doing more detailed book “review” pages this year. I’m hoping to read more books out of my normal reads in 2024! Maybe I’ll find another go to genres to add to my list! 🤞🏻
This is my first year creating a reading journal. It doesn’t look nice like yours or any other readers journals, but I like how it’s turning out. I’m making one to mainly review my books and write my thoughts down about those books. I know there’s a lot of apps that I can use to track my reading, but I want the physical thing that I can make my own. Creating a reading journal has also helped my mental health.
All that matters is that your journal is working for you, in my opinion! It doesn’t need to be pretty or perfect ❤️ I also tried using digital journals and apps too but it just never felt as good to me. I really love getting to physically write my thoughts and getting to be super creative with my book pages.
I think when colouring in the book shelves I like the idea of colouring them in as the same colour of the book that you are reading and either putting the title of the book or the first letter of each word if its a long title
I have a book shelf in my journal ... and have stuck with coloring them in my ratings. I will stick with it a second year, only because it works for me.
Lovely setup, I'd love to see the other pages. But I think that this time of year is busy enough (you're doing December Daily), that I'd be content with a talky flip-through in the new year. I have already set up my reading journal for 2024, mostly with customized and printed calender pages that I used for the last few years. The new releases I'm tracking in the form of a future log with a column for every month and 4 columns per double page. Last year I had 4 months per one page and that was definitely not enough space. It is mostly a very functional journal with the occassional scrapbook layout of me reading sprinkled in (if my husband takes a candid shot). My favourite genres are (urban) fantasy and science fiction, but I also read the occassional murder mystery and romance. I don't have a favourite book of the year, I have a favourite book of the month. Comparing all 12, my favourites would be "The Undertaking of Hart and Mercy" (looking forward to book 2 next year), the "Whimbrel House" series book 1 and 2 (again, looking forward to book 3) and "Thornhedge" by T. Kingfisher. The twists in her fairy tales are mind-blowing. If you ever read or saw the Snow Queen by Hans Christian Andersen as a young girl and thoght Gerda was dumb, read "The Raven and the Reindeer". BTW I don't think you make a fool of yourself at all. You are just a regular crafter and sometimes make mistakes as we all do. Makes you human, not a fool. ;)
Thank you so much! Your reading journal sounds amazing! I bet it’s so satisfying to flip through at the end of the year. I always have the hardest time deciding on a favorite for the whole year. I think I may do a book bracket for 2024 and let that decide for me this upcoming year, haha! I’m definitely going to check out some of the books you listed for next year! Thanks!
@@ToreyRamos thanks, but my journal is more functional than amazing. The layouts are fun, but rare. I would have scrapped the photos anyway, just in an album (and sometimes I do). I don't love book brackets. I see the appeal from a decorative pov, but I don't think they work all that well. What if a book that "wins" in February is less amazing than a book that "looses" in September? Obvioulsy they are all great, but that would drive me nuts.
My favorite non-fiction book from 2023 was a leadership book called The Wisdom of the Bullfrog by Admiral William H. McRaven. My favorite fiction book of the year was the thriller Something Bad Wrong by Eryk Pruitt. I have a reading journal and absolutely love it. I joined two reading challenges this year for the first time ever. Wanted to start easy to make sure I could do it. Joined an A-Z and a Reading Through the Decades to try to get out of my usual preferred genre of thriller/murder-mystery. Thank you for sharing your journal--very inspiring layouts!!
I’m hoping to break out of my comfort genres a little more this year myself! I want to try and read more mystery/thriller books this year but I am such a scaredy-cat with an overactive imagination, so I’m not sure where to start 🫣😂
Love this setup! If you end up making more yearly spreads I'd love to see them, too. About the bookshelf spread: ever since I have a reading bujo, I always colored the books according the color of their covers but next year I'm gonna mix it up a bit - this time I'll color by reading month, but I don't want to have huge blocks of the same colors, so instead of going in order like previous years, I'm just gonna pick the books to color in randomly across my shelves. I'm curious to see how it's going to turn out... maybe I'll hate it and change it up again next year, or I'll even end up re-doing the entire thing halfway through the year lol.
Thank you so much! I also considered coloring by month but didn’t want big blocks of one color either, so scattering them around is an excellent idea to make that work!
I usually colour my books haphazardly but for my 2025 setup, I want to assign a colour to each genre I read since I've been reading more diversely since the end of 2022😊 I'm setting up my bookshelf like that and also creating the same idea but with book covers and those will show the number of stars I assign to each book and I'll add a frame around each book cover to indicate which format I read them in. Maybe that can give you some ideas🫶 even if this is an older setup hehe
For my 2024 shelf, I ended up just picking 5 colors from my markers and alternating through them while coloring books in, with no rhyme or reason. I actually really like the way it ended up looking, so I may do that again for 2025! I love your ideas though!!
If you need a book starting with Z: The Zookeeper’s wife, Zodiac Academy, Zero Days, The Zanzibar Affair or Zami. I got Z for my book club in Feb and I have to pick one too!
Love this set up! I can’t name just 1 book. My favorite are fantasy romance, dark romance, dark academia, romance, fantasy… My fav authors are Sarah J. Maas, Jennifer L. Armentrout, Scarlett St. Clair and many others.
2024 is definitely the first year I will be having a book journal, mainly being that I don’t want to include anything else (beside my thoughts and feeling) in my person journal. I have already partially set it up. This year was also the first year where I actively got back into reading, so for this year I just had a reading log and a (12) book goal pages set up in my personal journal
Tip: 2024 wil have 29 days in februari 😊. Loving the videos. I am also the only one I know IRL that has a reading journal and reads as much as I do (about 100 books a year). The main genres I read are also romance and fantasy, but I am trying to get more into classics. Fav book book of 2023 was Fourth Wing.
I have sort of a reading journal for 2024, my hope for 2024 is to get back into reading books, I read a lot of fanfic online, but I wanna start reading books, so I made a little journal on my tablet (I did not wanna waist a Journal just in case I give, up I hate wasting paper) to help my track how many books, am a slow reader I have dyslexia so that adds to the challenge, I have now set a number on how many I wanna read, I'll be happy it I just read one, my favorite things to read are fantasy and romance, even better if they are at the same time =)
I started with a digital reading journal too, before I moved to a paper one, just to see if I actually liked it. It's a great way to determine if it's something you'll enjoy! I hope you are able to meet whatever goals you set for yourself in 2024 💚
Torrey what is the tape you use to mask off when you were coloring in the shelves? Is it just painters tape? Love your journal! Very pretty and such motivation for my own journal
Thank you! At first I was using washi tape, but then started using the mint tape from scrapbook.com. It’s a very low-tack tape that I love using for crafting! www.scrapbook.com/store/sbc-ptadh-4303.html
I'm going into my 3rd year of having a reading journal. I'm the only one I know in real life that keeps one. My book journal is more of an actual journal than a Tracker. Sometimes I journal chapter, by chapter. Sometimes, I just review the book as a whole. Sometimes, I just give it a rating. My favourite book this year was 'Slave, Worrior, Queen'. I did a chapter by chapter review because it was the first book in a series and I want to be able to go back and remember what happened before I read the next book as it may be well over a year before I get to it.
I’ve been thinking for 2024 that I’m going to change up my reviewing a bit again and actually do something similar to what you do. Sometimes I just don’t want to write about the books and only want to give them a star rating, haha! Also - I’m definitely adding that book to my TBR for next year. It sounds like something I’d love!
My book goal was 50 this year. I have 5 left and I am struggling!! 😩 If I can't get through it my goal will just stay at 50 for next year. I don't have a reading journal bc I already know I will struggle filling it in but I enjoy watching the videos!!
You can color each book what month you read it. Green for January, Yellow for March, you get the idea. Gives you an idea on which month's are busier than others.
Great idea!
I have an old reading journal where I tracked books read with star ratings and wrote down book quotes for several years’ worth of reading that is just about full now, so I need a new one. In a separate blank notebook (that again, I wanted to keep for several years so I don’t have to copy things over again and again) I have a section for my TBR/backlog-every book I own but haven’t read, plus movies and shows I want to watch, with book series & TV series trackers as well. For many years, I’ve just written the books I read each month in my yearly planners, and kept track that way. I love watching set up videos like this though, which makes me *want* to have dedicated reading journals each year. I just know I don’t have the follow-through to keep up with trackers and such. When I’ve done bookshelf spreads, I usually mimic the color of the actual book cover when I color them. Fave genres: fantasy, sci-fi, & magic realism… and occasional Hallmark movie-ish no spice romance or Christmas reads. My favorite book in 2023 was “Nightfall in the Garden of Deep Time.” (Magic realism + romance + save the small bookshop Hallmark vibes all in one… with a dash of the artist’s journey/struggles of writers/creators to create. I tabbed SO MANY quotes that I loved).
Your journals sound so great and like they really work for you! Love that!
I’m 100% going to have to look into your favorite book for 2023 - it sounds amazing!
Torey, This set up is beautiful! Thank you for sharing ❤ I am 63 years young and have been an avid reader for 59 of them and you have inspired me to start my 1st BUJO reading journal 🥰
Thank you so much, Lita! That means a lot ❤️ I’m here to help with questions I can answer or advice I can offer!
I read primarily romance and had used a reading log for some time now. The reading log evolved a bit but I still consider my reading journal/planner/etc. my reading log.
Anyway, a suggestion for the bookshelf color would be changing the pen to denote the genre; if you don't write the title, maybe add some spine decorations to denote the genre and/or if you owned it, borrowed it, etc. When I had a bookshelf page in my reading planner, I used colored pencils to denote the format and if I owned/borrowed it. Example: A romance novel with two white lines at the top and two white lines at the bottom to denote that it's borrowed/digital/etc. Maybe my explanation isn't clear, but I do hope it helps inspire you a bit.
I love the idea of using spine decorations! I hadn’t thought of that at all - thank you! 😊
I just started a Reading Journal this year. I am an avid reader and thought this was a great idea to track what I have read. I have been exploring many TH-cam videos on various layouts.
I hope you are enjoying it! My reading journal is always my most favorite project, I think 😍
I color my book shelf books in how the spine on the actual book looks like. I only read physical books, but I make it look like my book shelf would look if I owned all the books I read. :~)
Love this idea!
Hi Torey! I loved watching you set up your reading journal. Like you I don't have any "real life" friends who keep reading journals (or December Dailies, although I just found out the daughter of one of my stitching friends keeps a DD and is a reader -- so who knows?). I set one up last year and it was a complete fail! I'm not really into keeping all the stats, especially the ones I can find on Goodreads anyway. I am more interested in keeping notes on the books I'm reading, quotes from the books, and my thoughts/reviews, so I may try to continue with the same journal for 2024, but just with more of a monthly approach. I am not a romance aficionada, I confess, I'm more of a serious literature kind of a person, my guilty pleasure though, are cozy mysteries! And I'm in Krystal Idunate's book club, so I'm being exposed to lots of genres I probably wouldn't otherwise try -- and I'm liking them! Like fantasy and magical realism.
I love keeping track of all those things too in my monthly setups! I’m still trying to figure out if I want to keep my monthlies the same as I did in 2023 or change them up some. I do know I want to keep doing more detailed book “review” pages this year. I’m hoping to read more books out of my normal reads in 2024! Maybe I’ll find another go to genres to add to my list! 🤞🏻
This is my first year creating a reading journal. It doesn’t look nice like yours or any other readers journals, but I like how it’s turning out. I’m making one to mainly review my books and write my thoughts down about those books. I know there’s a lot of apps that I can use to track my reading, but I want the physical thing that I can make my own. Creating a reading journal has also helped my mental health.
All that matters is that your journal is working for you, in my opinion! It doesn’t need to be pretty or perfect ❤️ I also tried using digital journals and apps too but it just never felt as good to me. I really love getting to physically write my thoughts and getting to be super creative with my book pages.
I think when colouring in the book shelves I like the idea of colouring them in as the same colour of the book that you are reading and either putting the title of the book or the first letter of each word if its a long title
Thank you! I might have to go this route! I swear I’m having decision paralysis over this ahaha, and this will just let the books decide for me.
I have a book shelf in my journal ... and have stuck with coloring them in my ratings. I will stick with it a second year, only because it works for me.
Lovely setup, I'd love to see the other pages. But I think that this time of year is busy enough (you're doing December Daily), that I'd be content with a talky flip-through in the new year.
I have already set up my reading journal for 2024, mostly with customized and printed calender pages that I used for the last few years. The new releases I'm tracking in the form of a future log with a column for every month and 4 columns per double page. Last year I had 4 months per one page and that was definitely not enough space. It is mostly a very functional journal with the occassional scrapbook layout of me reading sprinkled in (if my husband takes a candid shot).
My favourite genres are (urban) fantasy and science fiction, but I also read the occassional murder mystery and romance.
I don't have a favourite book of the year, I have a favourite book of the month. Comparing all 12, my favourites would be "The Undertaking of Hart and Mercy" (looking forward to book 2 next year), the "Whimbrel House" series book 1 and 2 (again, looking forward to book 3) and "Thornhedge" by T. Kingfisher. The twists in her fairy tales are mind-blowing. If you ever read or saw the Snow Queen by Hans Christian Andersen as a young girl and thoght Gerda was dumb, read "The Raven and the Reindeer".
BTW I don't think you make a fool of yourself at all. You are just a regular crafter and sometimes make mistakes as we all do. Makes you human, not a fool. ;)
Thank you so much! Your reading journal sounds amazing! I bet it’s so satisfying to flip through at the end of the year.
I always have the hardest time deciding on a favorite for the whole year. I think I may do a book bracket for 2024 and let that decide for me this upcoming year, haha!
I’m definitely going to check out some of the books you listed for next year! Thanks!
@@ToreyRamos thanks, but my journal is more functional than amazing. The layouts are fun, but rare. I would have scrapped the photos anyway, just in an album (and sometimes I do).
I don't love book brackets. I see the appeal from a decorative pov, but I don't think they work all that well. What if a book that "wins" in February is less amazing than a book that "looses" in September? Obvioulsy they are all great, but that would drive me nuts.
This will be my first set up. I saved your video so I can have it as a reference
I love that! Let me know if you have any questions, I'm always happy to help if I can ☺️
My favorite non-fiction book from 2023 was a leadership book called The Wisdom of the Bullfrog by Admiral William H. McRaven. My favorite fiction book of the year was the thriller Something Bad Wrong by Eryk Pruitt. I have a reading journal and absolutely love it. I joined two reading challenges this year for the first time ever. Wanted to start easy to make sure I could do it. Joined an A-Z and a Reading Through the Decades to try to get out of my usual preferred genre of thriller/murder-mystery. Thank you for sharing your journal--very inspiring layouts!!
I’m hoping to break out of my comfort genres a little more this year myself! I want to try and read more mystery/thriller books this year but I am such a scaredy-cat with an overactive imagination, so I’m not sure where to start 🫣😂
Love this setup! If you end up making more yearly spreads I'd love to see them, too. About the bookshelf spread: ever since I have a reading bujo, I always colored the books according the color of their covers but next year I'm gonna mix it up a bit - this time I'll color by reading month, but I don't want to have huge blocks of the same colors, so instead of going in order like previous years, I'm just gonna pick the books to color in randomly across my shelves. I'm curious to see how it's going to turn out... maybe I'll hate it and change it up again next year, or I'll even end up re-doing the entire thing halfway through the year lol.
Thank you so much! I also considered coloring by month but didn’t want big blocks of one color either, so scattering them around is an excellent idea to make that work!
I usually colour my books haphazardly but for my 2025 setup, I want to assign a colour to each genre I read since I've been reading more diversely since the end of 2022😊 I'm setting up my bookshelf like that and also creating the same idea but with book covers and those will show the number of stars I assign to each book and I'll add a frame around each book cover to indicate which format I read them in. Maybe that can give you some ideas🫶 even if this is an older setup hehe
For my 2024 shelf, I ended up just picking 5 colors from my markers and alternating through them while coloring books in, with no rhyme or reason. I actually really like the way it ended up looking, so I may do that again for 2025! I love your ideas though!!
I have trouble with that word, too!! Try breaking a word into syllables as that helps: re-com-mend-ment 🙂 I really appreciated your video!! TY!
Thank you so much!! 💗
If you need a book starting with Z: The Zookeeper’s wife, Zodiac Academy, Zero Days, The Zanzibar Affair or Zami. I got Z for my book club in Feb and I have to pick one too!
Thank you for the recommendations! 💚
Love this set up! I can’t name just 1 book. My favorite are fantasy romance, dark romance, dark academia, romance, fantasy… My fav authors are Sarah J. Maas, Jennifer L. Armentrout, Scarlett St. Clair and many others.
Thank you! I can’t never pick just 1 book either 😅 We have very similar tastes!!
Really lovely journal!!
Yay! 🥰
2024 is definitely the first year I will be having a book journal, mainly being that I don’t want to include anything else (beside my thoughts and feeling) in my person journal. I have already partially set it up. This year was also the first year where I actively got back into reading, so for this year I just had a reading log and a (12) book goal pages set up in my personal journal
Good luck with your first book journal! I hope you love having the space for your books!
Tip: 2024 wil have 29 days in februari 😊. Loving the videos. I am also the only one I know IRL that has a reading journal and reads as much as I do (about 100 books a year). The main genres I read are also romance and fantasy, but I am trying to get more into classics. Fav book book of 2023 was Fourth Wing.
Thank you! I realized that the day after I finished this setup! 😂 I was wondering if anyone would notice, nice catch!!
For my book shelf, I color my books based on the primary color of the actual book cover as I finish a book.
I have sort of a reading journal for 2024, my hope for 2024 is to get back into reading books, I read a lot of fanfic online, but I wanna start reading books, so I made a little journal on my tablet (I did not wanna waist a Journal just in case I give, up I hate wasting paper) to help my track how many books, am a slow reader I have dyslexia so that adds to the challenge, I have now set a number on how many I wanna read, I'll be happy it I just read one,
my favorite things to read are fantasy and romance, even better if they are at the same time =)
I started with a digital reading journal too, before I moved to a paper one, just to see if I actually liked it. It's a great way to determine if it's something you'll enjoy! I hope you are able to meet whatever goals you set for yourself in 2024 💚
Beautiful journal.
For the bookshelves, this year I attempting to color code by reading source but that didn’t work out haha
Thank you! I’m color coding by format this year (2023), but it doesn’t feel like enough variation between my books.
Torrey what is the tape you use to mask off when you were coloring in the shelves? Is it just painters tape? Love your journal! Very pretty and such motivation for my own journal
Thank you!
At first I was using washi tape, but then started using the mint tape from scrapbook.com. It’s a very low-tack tape that I love using for crafting!
www.scrapbook.com/store/sbc-ptadh-4303.html
I'm going into my 3rd year of having a reading journal. I'm the only one I know in real life that keeps one.
My book journal is more of an actual journal than a Tracker. Sometimes I journal chapter, by chapter. Sometimes, I just review the book as a whole. Sometimes, I just give it a rating.
My favourite book this year was 'Slave, Worrior, Queen'. I did a chapter by chapter review because it was the first book in a series and I want to be able to go back and remember what happened before I read the next book as it may be well over a year before I get to it.
I’ve been thinking for 2024 that I’m going to change up my reviewing a bit again and actually do something similar to what you do. Sometimes I just don’t want to write about the books and only want to give them a star rating, haha!
Also - I’m definitely adding that book to my TBR for next year. It sounds like something I’d love!
Love this! I’m looking to start my first reading journal for 2025! What size of notebook did you use here?
That’s so exciting! I am using an a5 sized journal this year and I will be using the same size for 2025 as well :)
I color my books by the day of the week I finished it so each day of the week has a color and then I color it that day I finished
That is brilliant!!
The Hunting by Natasha Preston they need to make her books into movie.
Maybe you should color them in by month reads. Each color represent a different month
I think this is what I may end up doing!
My book goal was 50 this year. I have 5 left and I am struggling!! 😩 If I can't get through it my goal will just stay at 50 for next year. I don't have a reading journal bc I already know I will struggle filling it in but I enjoy watching the videos!!
45 books is still a ton to finish in one year! Awesome job!!