My Journal For Reading And Audiobooks

Hello my Lovelies :-),

What’s up? It’s Sunday and here we are. 🙂 Time to have a cup of coffee, tea, or your favourite drink and talk about something related to journaling.
In November 2023 I had this idea in my mind to read more books and find a way to journal about them. So I thought it would be great to look for inspiration on Youtube. Well, and what should I say? You find lots of videos there about this topic. After I had started watching my first video I was wondering how people manage to read 100 books or more in one year. It is such a huge number and I was really curious about it. I really felt a little bit bad because I haven’t got that much time to read everyday because other things need time as well and after a day’s work, I fall asleep quite quickly even when I want to read something. I thought that I need to overthink my priorities and maybe I would find more time to read. Well, let us stick with the woman on Youtube whose video I had been watchting.

Reading = Listening?

She explained her pages full with books and she counted pages she read on a statistics page. Since I love statistics, I paused the video and looked closer and closer at what she had written on this page. And then, there was the answer to my question on how she (and possibly others as well) managed to read so many books: She didn’t read them; she listened to them. The statistics said that 95% of the books were audiobooks and only 5% were real books like hardcovers or paperbacks.

Well, I have a small problem with that point of view, to say „I read 100 books“ while 95 of these books were actually audiobooks.
For me, there is a difference between whether one reads a book or listens to a book. Please do not get me wrong: I think one can enjoy a book or a story in both ways, none of which is better than the other. When I sit down and read a book, I takes time (and some sort of effort). I usually have a cup of coffee or tea, sit down on my favourite couch, and enjoy every page of words written on them. I dive into the pages and can forget everything around me. When I do this, I need at least one hour for myself because I’m not a fan of reading for 10 minutes or so. It is just a personal habit. If you can do this, then it is totally fine.
If I listen to an audiobook, I like to do other stuff at the same time: I could cook, clean, tidy up, journal, draw, do some gardening, take a bath, or other things. In such situations, the audiobook is more like a sidekick and it’s not the centre of my focus. I like to listen to the stories but every speaker puts his/her own thingy to the book and it changes my understanding of the characters. It is quite different to the reading by myself.

So both ways are totally fine to enjoy a book or story but I’d prefer to be precise on whether one reads or listens to a(n) (audio)book. However, if someone just says „I read 100 books“ I have a different picture in my head, I wouldn’t think that the person listened to 95 audiobooks.
Well, I watched at least 15 or more videos and all of them had the same approach: audiobook = book, listening = reading. I was confused. It wasn’t my approach and because of that, my journal is a reading and audiobook journal. And yes, making this differentiation is important to me.

I accept the concept of „a book is a book“. I learnt and understand that it is more common. So I have a niche position and it is totally fine for me. So for this blog, I’m going to shorten reading and audiobook journal to R&A Journal.

And now, let’s have a check on the journal I’m using, shall we?

The Journal Itself

Last year my husband bought me a journal by paper republic. It is a bundle of a leather journal with four inserts. The bundle is called „The Creative Set“. There is one big insert and two smaller ones with dotted paper as well as a smaller one with plain paper. Everything was packed in a gray box made of cardboard. The bigger journal is called „grand voyageur“ which I think is a great idea. You get a second rubber band as well and a cotton bag for your journal, so you can take it with you and it will be protected.
I have the size XL and it cost 105 €. It is handmade and really lovely. But the most surprising part was the handwritten note I got with it and that was not only surprising but a bit of a fresh idea to a journal bundle.

The surface of the leather cover is so soft and smooth which makes it great to touch. You can have something imprinted as well, if you like to. I do have such an imprint and it’s my nickname „Sweety“, which is only used by my husband. He likes calling me Sweety or Sweetheart 🙂 . Well, back to the journal: The colour is cognac with the golden imprint. The rubber band is orange which is a really lovely combination. On the back of the leather cover, there is a really simple and subtle imprint of paper republic.

Well, you may wonder how I found the shop. That was really simple because I saw an advertisement on social media and wondered, for nearly two years, whether I should order a bundle or not. In the end, I showed it to my husband and he thought that I should give it a shot.

Paper republic is located in Vienna, Austria, and the leather is from Italy. They produce a lot of high quality products around journaling and things you may need for being productive. I can highly recommend the bundle which I’m using because it is beautiful, spotless, and fun to use.
In addition: The shipping was fast and without any problems.

Inside My R&A Journal

Now that you know that sort of journal I’m using, let’s get back to what I have started to write into it.

While watching all the different videos on Youtube, I collected a few page ideas which I really liked. And those ideas led to the following pages inside my R&A Journal:

• cover page
• index
• a bookshelf
• classic Book Challenge
• Book Bingo
• audiobook series
• book series
• (audio)book around the world
• one page per book

The R&A Journal isn’t just for this year, I keep it going as long as there are pages that can be filled. I think you know what a cover page and an index look like 😉

My bookshelf looks like some shelves on a wall with a window and a couple of decorations. Each book is blank and I write a book title in one of them after I will have read it.
The classic book challenge is where I listed some book which I would like to read one day, for example:

• Brave New World
• Frankenstein
• 1984
• Canterbury Tales
• Treasure Island
• Beowulf

It is a list with different genres because I would like to broaden my mind. It also includes classic books which I wouldn’t normally read because their genre isn’t my usual cup of tea. To be honest, I love a good thriller, murder mystery, or some horror novels. Nevertheless, it’s also helpful to stay open-minded and maybe learn from other books too.

Book Bingo is quite a fun page. There are genres which I love, which I like and which I’m not a fan of. But to get a BINGO, I need to read a genre I usually don’t fancy in the first place. There are genres like non-fiction, romance, comedy, horror, crime, or science fiction. It also includes whether it’s an audiobook, a physical book, or ebook.

The pages for audiobook or book series only include the titles of each entry in the series as well as a mark with a little dot to indicate which book in the series I read or listened. Theses are really simple pages, nothing fancy about them.

Fancy, on the other hand, is the (audio)book around the world page. There is a map of the world and I would like to read as many books from as many different countries in the world as possible. Well, I can just read in German and English, so I hope that I will find some good translations of as many other languages as possible.

Then I have my „one book per page“ section. It is the very first time that I write journal entries in German, which is a little bit strange but also nice in some way. In these pages, I doodle the cover of the book, name the title and the author. There are also some small pieces of information like year of publication, genre, number of pages, as well as the dates of when I started and when I finished the book. I write a short summary and some personal notes. If I have a favourite quote, it will be added there as well. Finally, I rate the book from 1 to 5 (five is like perfect and one is like „not my type“).

So that’s all. No hundreds of pages where I need to write or mark something in every day. I will take it out whenever I need it and it’s a non-pressure journal. It is just for fun and to remind myself that I’m still the book lover I used to be. And when I’m out of ideas what to read next, the journal can provide some inspiration.

Finally and as a little sneak for the following up comings, I will talk with you about my favourite books of 2023 and about a subscription box for books.

In the words of one of my favourite authors, Stephen King: “Books are a uniquely portable magic.”

Love to you all,
Your Evil Journalista aka Chrissi