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Create a Reading Journal This January

by Public Service Associate Juliana

Photo by Juliana Farrington

January is a perfect time to set up new systems. Last year I decided to start a Reading Journal.

I was interested in more than keeping a list. I’ve kept a reading list for years, and it didn’t feel like enough anymore. I read lots of books and spend lots of my time reading, and in 2024 I noticed that while my year end totals were admirable, I wasn’t retaining much of what I read. I couldn’t spout out plots or tell you spoilers. I rarely ever remembered the endings. I wanted to be able to have something to say about a book a month or year after I’d read it or at least have the journal to refer back to. Ultimately, I wanted the time I invested in reading to count for more. 

“In the case of good books, the point is not to see how many of them you can get through, but rather how many can get through to you.”

–Mortimer J. Adler

Rather than plowing through books to set a new all time high reading count, I wanted to slow down and sink in. I knew a reading journal would help me do this. So I chose a notebook and got started. 

I sat down and asked myself what I wanted out of keeping a journal. I watched a couple of YouTube videos related to reading logs to help me figure it out. The videos helped me get into the right mindset and also see how other people have gone about documenting their reading journeys. I paid attention to how their journals were organized and what they included for each entry. From there I was able to shape my own general structure to follow. 

The videos helped me discover and narrow down what was and wasn’t important to me. Summaries, for example, weren’t important to me. I knew if I included that as a requirement for each entry I would feel the same anxiety I felt when I was asked to write summaries in school, and I’d be likely to avoid my journal altogether. If I needed a summary, the internet is a great resource for that. 

Instead, I focused on tracking things that were easy enough to keep me showing up. The journal needed to be structured but not intimidating, serious but not too serious. I wanted this to be something I could maintain for years, not a habit that fizzled out in a month or so.

For each book I read, I documented the following:

  • Title, author, year published, genre, date read
  • Rating: love, like, didn’t like and a sentence or two about why
  • A list of words, characters, phrases or themes associated with the book (whatever comes quickly and easily into my mind)
  • Quotes from the book
  • Additional resources related to the book (author interviews, podcasts, documentaries, biopics, feature films, memoirs, etc.)

These five bullet points helped me prioritize reading broadly — fiction and nonfiction, older and newer books, books by diverse authors, books I wanted to live inside, books that could teach me something, books read for sheer enjoyment. 

But my favorite part of my journal routine turned out to be searching for related resources. A great example was when I read Trout Fishing in America in July (an odd little book from 1967). After finishing it, I discovered Brautigan’s daughter had published a memoir, You Can’t Catch Death, about her relationship with her father and her grief over his suicide. It wasn’t until this month, January 2025, after I finished reading her book that I felt more of an impact and had a better understanding of Trout Fishing in America.

This helps to show how a reading journal can pull the thread of things you read through your life, to nudge you to go in directions you maybe wouldn’t have gone in otherwise and to make surprising and meaningful discoveries.

It bears mentioning again that reading journals are completely customizable. I know some people who keep a log of titles and authors and a star to denote whether they liked a book or not. And that’s enough. Maybe you’re not scarred by school memories and are a person who likes to write a summary with each title. Maybe you’re a digital person and use a platform such as Goodreads to keep track and write reviews of what you read.

Whatever type of journal you create, I hope you find a way to archive your reading life in a way that works for you and that you continue to adjust and adapt as needed. Wishing you a wonderful year full of reading!

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Online Resources

Holiday Films to Stream

by Public Service Associate Juliana

If you’re looking for heartwarming films this holiday season, start your search on Kanopy! This digital resource is available to you for free with your library card! Kanopy features thousands of movies, from classic cinema and indie film to international films and top documentaries and also plenty of holiday-themed films to celebrate the season.

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Staff Reviews

An Atmospheric Film for Thanksgiving

by Public Service Associate Juliana

Based on the Tony-award winning play, The Humans is heavy on dialogue and works to build complex, authentically flawed characters. It’s a dimly lit family drama that takes place on Thanksgiving night at the daughter’s lower Manhattan apartment. The synopsis reveals that “as darkness falls outside and eerie things start to go bump in the night, the group’s deepest fears are laid bare.” This leads you to think it’s a horror movie. 

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Recommendations

Haunted Novels for Fall

by Public Service Associate Juliana

Many Octobers I have steeped myself in scary movies, but this year I feel driven to read something scary. There’s no better place to start than with a classic from horror queen, Shirley Jackson. When I searched the fiction stacks I found The Haunting of Hill House. Orange and black cover, inky, black-edged pages and the title in gothic font, I was immediately obsessed.

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Recommendations

Lifelong Learning: A (Quick) Study of Oysters

by Public Service Associate Juliana

image from Taylor Shellfish

 “Unless you’re vegetarian or vegan, you can’t go to Seattle and skip a platter of freshly shucked Pacific Northwest Oysters.”

Lonely Planet Washington, Oregon & the Pacific Northwest

At the start of every travel journal, after flight details and a packing list, I create a checklist of things to do. Most recently, while planning a trip to Seattle, the list included Pike Place Market, the Space Needle, Seattle Central Library, coffee, and oysters.

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Recommendations

Five Ways to Browse Books in the Library

by Public Service Associate Juliana

Often, we come to the library looking for something specific – a book with a lot of buzz, something a friend recommended, one from our long TBR list, one we saw on #BookTok. What if we approached books in a different way? What if instead of a list of titles we browsed with a list of rules that encourage randomness? What if we weren’t attached to the outcome? What might we discover?

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staff favorites

Summertime Vibes at Your Library!

by Juliana, Public Service Associate

It’s going to be a hot one this week folks, and we’re here today to spark up reading and listening inspiration for the season we’ve all been waiting for — summer! If you’re looking for something to make your days dreamy and luminous, you’ve come to the right place.

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Recommendations

Find a New Interest at the Library! Featuring Japanese Breakfast

by Public Service Associate Juliana

Photo by Juliana Farrington

Midori’s cooking was far better than I had imagined it would be, an amazing assortment of fried, pickled, boiled, and roasted dishes using eggs, mackerel, fresh greens, eggplant, mushrooms, radishes, and sesame seeds, all done in the delicate Kyoto style.

— from Norwegian Wood by Haruki Murakami

One of the many, many things that I love about the library is that you can develop an interest in something and absolutely take off with it. By which I mean, you can mine the catalog for any and every resource, and you can follow any connection that happens to come your way. I ended up doing this type of deep dive with Japanese breakfast. An interest was born, I followed one lead to the next and the next. From television to cookware, cookbook to novel, memoir to music. It has been such a fun journey; I have to share it.

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Recommendations

 Female Irish Authors to Read this March

by Public Service Associate Juliana

I have been in love with Ireland ever since I was little and believed in fairies. Does that explain why I gravitate toward Irish writers? It seemed like a fairy trick last year when I’d start reading a novel and realize, “Another Irish author! How interesting!”

This month, in the spirit of celebrating Irish history and culture, it feels quite appropriate to highlight a few titles within this trend.

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Recommendations staff favorites

Lots of Love

by Public Service Associate Juliana

I was fourteen years old and obsessed with Kurt Cobain. His song, “Heart-Shaped Box”, inspired me to dump my Valentine candy into a bag and use the empty heart-shaped box for safekeeping. Shiny red, about the size of a dinner plate, it was perfect for love notes, by which I mean literally notes of “Things I Love.”