Book Journal & List
Around the retail holiday extravaganza, I think it was this last Xmas, the local Big Box Bookstore had some kind of a special, and as I was buying a few good books, I got a “free” book journal. (Hint: nothing is ever really free.)
Thought about re-gifting the book, but that didn’t happen, and thought about using it myself, but that’s not going to happen, either. However, it does give a moment’s pause to think about what I do.
Book Journal & List
Under a separate cover, one of the book sites in my feeds suggested that this was the year to start a “book journal,” and I thought about a “book diary,” which, in effect, is part of what I do here. Less about the content of the book, and more like a simple placeholder to remind me that I read that text.
It goes back to a pre-internet time when I kept a journal of whatever I was reading for a lit class. Became an exercise and one that paid, briefly, writings book reviews for a paper.
The economics on that one didn’t really work out, the book reviews paid $20 per piece, about 800 words, and the hardback books cost pretty much close to that, with tax and all. I looked at a hardback from that era, $16.95, and a coffee was $1.07 with sales tax. Those economics don’t play out well.
Book Journal & List
I had an experience, earlier, recently, can’t find the current “bookmark,” but I was rereading a text, and I used a (digital) library copy when, in fact, I did have a purchased e–book in my own files. However, as I’ve alluded to before, I currently bounce between a minimum of four different electronic reader apps, Library, Libby, Kindle, and Apple’s i–books. With that spread, there’s the Librarian Problem of keep track of what’s what and where it is in the stacks.
Hat tip to real librarians.
Book Journal & List
I started counting, and I think I’ve been doing this for a nearly two-dozen years, the notion of the writing down a title, or titles, or books I’m reading, and whether or not I found the book entertaining, engaging, wonderful, awful, uplifting, well-constructed, or just plain bad.
From my own experience, though, I know that if I stick with a book throughout its plot/story, to the very end? There was something that’s I liked. Form, format, filler, something resonated with me. Could be the cover art, but that’s less likely.
Book Journal & List
I was standing around the counter at the rock shop in Austin, chatting with the workers. I tend to bring offerings of food, music, and sometimes beverages, when I get a chance. Jokes, always, and astrological lore, as the season sees it.
The discussion veered off, there were Millennials, Mid-Term Millennials, and some of those Gen-Z types, all passionately discussing a point.
“Digustibum non disputibus.”1
While I intoned that sotto voce, and no one caught it? The expression holds.
Book Journal & List
My style doesn’t include a book with a written entries for each of the books I’ve read, but when I stumble through something that I either like, enjoy, or “other?” I make note. Less of a review and more of notation about what it was like for me.
Book Journal & List
Kramer Wetzel
- “Digustibum non disputibus.” (“I will not argue about taste.”) ↩
