Journaling, Old and New

Years ago I decided to start journaling the books I'd read, not in the book-report style, but more as a record of what I'd read as a reminder for my less than stellar memory. During the first Clinton administration I read somewhere that Hillary Clinton had a list of every book she'd ever read and I was so jealous. That tidbit of information strengthened my resolve and I committed myself to logging my finished reads. I think my first journal was an old-time compostion book and pretty ratty, so when someone gave me a hardbound journal with one of those little Raphael angels on the front, I transferred all the data to the new book.

Enter the computer age and the wonders of Excel. To my husband's horror, I began to keep my book journal on the computer as well as handwritten. I update the handwritten journal as soon as I complete the book and then periodically update the Excel workbook as I have time.

As scatterbrained and disorganized as I can be, my worksheet lists the name of the book, author, month and year completed, who recommended the book to me and where I got it. Possibly too much information, but it is fun to go back and see who introduced me to what. For example, my buddy Kathy B. introduced me to Michael Connelly and his detective Harry Bosch. Harry and I have spent many good times together and solved more than a few homicides. I will be forever grateful to KB for sharing her man. Ditto Louise Erdrich and "The Master Butchers' Singing Club." Using the sort feature also allows me to see if I've read the latest book out by serialized type authors like Stephen White and others like Nelson DeMille.

My workbook also has a second page for my "To Be Read" books, discovered via book reviews here and there. As you can imagine, that list is quite long and getting longer.

My husband calls me a Book Slut because he says I'll read anything, anywhere, anytime. I'm not so sure that is being slutty, but if it is, I'm guilty as charged.