{"id":2409,"date":"2012-07-18T18:51:11","date_gmt":"2012-07-18T08:51:11","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/michellecooper-writer.com\/blog\/?p=2409"},"modified":"2012-07-18T18:51:12","modified_gmt":"2012-07-18T08:51:12","slug":"my-book-journal","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/michellecooper-writer.com\/blog\/2012\/07\/my-book-journal\/","title":{"rendered":"My Book Journal"},"content":{"rendered":"

A few years ago, I stopped working at a Proper Job* and on my final day, my colleagues had a little party and presented me with a farewell gift \u2013 a lovely silver pen and a blank journal. I’d just had my first novel accepted for publication and my colleagues said I could use the pen and book to write my next novel. It was a lovely idea, and in fact, I did<\/em> use the pen to take notes for A Brief History of Montmaray<\/em> (and indeed, I still use that pen nearly every day, because it really is a very nice pen, of exactly the right size and weight and ink colour to suit my tastes). But as for the blank journal \u2013 well, I type my novels on a computer, and when I take research notes, they’re scribbled on cheap lecture pads and technicoloured Post-It notes. I couldn’t imagine writing a novel (with all the crossing-out and page-tearing-out that that involves) in a beautiful journal with gilt-edged pages, decorated with a detail from a Charles Rennie Mackintosh painting**.<\/p>\n

\"book<\/a><\/p>\n

\"gilt-edged<\/a><\/p>\n

\"blank<\/a><\/p>\n

The book was simply too pretty to sully with my scribblings, so it sat in a cupboard for a couple of years. <\/p>\n

However, at the start of 2011, I decided it would be handy to keep a record of all the books I read and to make brief notes on the books I found interesting (either interestingly good or interestingly bad). I suppose I could have just joined Goodreads<\/a> or LibraryThing<\/a>, as everyone else does, but I wanted to keep my notes private. I considered setting up some sort of spreadsheet on my computer, but that sounded too much like hard work. And then I remembered my ‘Blank Note Book’. <\/p>\n

Readers, it is blank no more.<\/p>\n

\"entry<\/a><\/p>\n

Note: Photo is artfully blurred so you can’t see what I wrote about Insignificant Others<\/em> and Dead Until Dark<\/em> \u2013 although I did enjoy both those books, for different reasons.<\/p>\n

I write down the title and author of each book I read and what I thought of the book. Sometimes I only write a sentence; sometimes I write pages. I often write about the book\u2019s structure and the effectiveness of the literary devices used, because analysing other books helps me to become a better writer. But just as often, my book journal reflects how I was feeling and what was going on in my world at the time I read the book, so I guess it is a bit like a personal diary. The books I really loved get a star, and I use the stars to compile my Favourite Books blog post<\/a> at the end of each year. Sometimes I also stick in the review that prompted me to try the book in the first place.<\/p>\n

\"book<\/a><\/p>\n

At the front of my journal, I keep clippings of book reviews and Post-It notes of titles that have caught my attention. When I start to run out of books to read, I consult these notes and reviews, and track the books down at the library or the bookstore (usually the library, because I am now an impoverished writer lacking a Proper Job). My current To Be Tracked Down book list includes:<\/p>\n

The Uninvited Guests<\/em> by Sadie Jones
\nA Few Right Thinking Men<\/em> by Sulari Gentill
\nCold Light<\/em>, the final book in the Edith Campbell Berry trilogy, by Frank Moorehouse
\nBackwater War<\/em> by Peggy Woodford
\nLettie Fox<\/em> by Christina Stead
\nA Pattern of Islands<\/em> by Arthur Grimble<\/p>\n

There are also quite a few books on my list that have not been treated to very much investigation at all. For example, I have a Post-It note that says ‘Hilary McKay – Casson family?’, which means I haven’t actually got around to looking up the book titles, let alone reserving them from the library. I also got stuck on Patrick Melrose’s novels, because the library catalogue informed me it only had the fourth book in a five-book series. (Does anyone know if I need to read Never Mind<\/em>\/Bad News<\/em>\/Some Hope<\/em> before Mother’s Milk<\/em>? Or are the books so depressing that I’ll regret reading any of them?) Still, it’s not as though I have a dearth of reading material at the moment.<\/p>\n

Now that I’ve started a book journal, I wish I’d kept a record of all the books I’d ever read. It would be fascinating to see what I thought of The Famous Five<\/em> and Trixie Belden<\/em> and What Katy Did<\/em> and all those other books I loved to pieces (literally) in my early reading years. Or maybe it would just be really embarrassing.<\/p>\n

* That is, a job which involved me commuting by train to an office, often while wearing a suit, and having someone else pay me each fortnight and even pay me when I went on holiday<\/em> or got sick<\/em> . . . Oh, those were the good old days.
\n** It’s a detail from Part Seen, Imagined Part<\/em> (1896), which apparently can be viewed at the Kelvingrove Art Gallery and Museum<\/a> in Glasgow.
\n*** One day I will figure out how to do proper footnotes in WordPress.<\/p>\n

For those of you who keep book journals, I’d also like to remind you that my book giveaway<\/a> is still open, till the end of the month. You could win a copy of the Vintage Classics edition of A Brief History of Montmaray<\/em> and then write about it in your journal<\/em>! (Note: Those who don’t have book journals are also welcome to enter the giveaway.)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A few years ago, I stopped working at a Proper Job* and on my final day, my colleagues had a little party and presented me with a farewell gift \u2013 a lovely silver pen and a blank journal. I’d just had my first novel accepted for publication and my colleagues said I could use the … Continue reading My Book Journal<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6,18,8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2409","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-books","category-my-favourite-books","category-this-writing-life"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/michellecooper-writer.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2409","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/michellecooper-writer.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/michellecooper-writer.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/michellecooper-writer.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/michellecooper-writer.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2409"}],"version-history":[{"count":18,"href":"https:\/\/michellecooper-writer.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2409\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2432,"href":"https:\/\/michellecooper-writer.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2409\/revisions\/2432"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/michellecooper-writer.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2409"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/michellecooper-writer.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2409"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/michellecooper-writer.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2409"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}