Back in March, on this blog, I bemoaned the fact that I had ‘too many books to read, and too little time.’ I was convinced that the growing pile of books awaiting my reading attention was the result of my reading too slowly, or not often enough, not the result of living too near Waterstones, Barter Books, or of browsing on Amazon rather more frequently than might be good for me.
So in March I decided to start a book journal. In this I would write down every book I read, together with a brief summary of what it was about, plus any thoughts I might have which could help my own writing.
Here I am now, in October, and I am amazed to find that the first volume (as it must surely be) of my book journal is now complete, with about 60 entries – more than one a week for sure. So I am not a slow reader, just an over enthusiastic collector of books. And is that a bad thing?
The book journal is also proving incredibly useful as a writer. Do you ever have that moment when you think something like ‘well I recently read a book where the protagonist was an unreliable narrator/ first person present/ a dog/ dead..’ (Delete as applicable) but can’t for the life of you remember which one it was? That’s where the book journal comes in. Already it has proven useful on a number of such occasions.
However what I will do when the pile of book journals is so big, that wading through them is going to take too long… Any suggestions?