2024 is nearly upon us, and that means it’s time for my 2024 reading journal set-up! This is my 4th year tracking my book reviews, goals, and stats in a separate reading journal, and I don’t have plans to stop anytime soon. I had planned to get this blog post and video up for you all last week, but catching Covid-19 while pregnant definitely de-railed me for a bit. But better late than never, right?
If you saw my 2023 Reading Journal Set-up post or video, a lot of these spreads are similar for 2024. The only significant differences are that I’m using a larger size journal this year (B5 instead of A5), and I cut out a few of the yearly spreads that I didn’t end up using much throughout 2023.
Be sure to keep an eye out on my blog and/or my YouTube channel for a blog post / flip-through video of my 2023 reading journal to see how some of these spreads look filled in, and to see how I use some of my monthly spreads and review pages. And for some of my favorite journaling supplies, many of which are used for theses spreads, check out this blog post.
2024 Reading Journal Set-up Spreads
The Journal
This year for my reading journal I’m using a B5 sized dot grid journal from Archer and Olive. This is kind of funny to me because it means my reading journals have steadily increased in size over the years. For 2021 and 2022, the first years I started reading a lot again, I used a B6. Last year, an A5. And now a B6!
This is a vegan leather journal in a beautiful green color. It actually has the same icon as my journal
from last year, embossed in gold.
But I prefer the leather covers to the linen as I find that the linen covers collect much more dust, stains, and pet hair than the leather covers.
If you’re interested in checking out any of Archer and Olive’s products, make sure to use my code PLANNEDANDPLANTED10 to save 10& off your order!
Grid Spacing Bookmark
Like I mentioned last year, this idea for a grid spacing bookmark is originally from Tracy Revell on Youtube. In my opinion it is far more efficient than a grid spacing page at the front of your journal. While I didn’t use mine in 2023 as much as I thought, it was still nice to have it as an easy reference point when I remembered.
Reading Journal Cover Page
I kind of didn’t know where to stop with this cover page, but I’m not mad about the results! I love this type of vintage, scrapbook-y feel with ripped pages and lots of neutral colors and bookish stamps.
I always include a quote in my reading journal cover pages, and I deliberated for a long time about which to include this year. I settled on this quote by Pam Allyn:
“Reading is like breathing in; writing is like breathing out.”
This year I have started to cultivate a writing habit, and one of my main goals for 2024 is to become more consistent with said habit. I just love this idea that reading and writing are two parts of a singular breath
2023 Reading Stats and Recap
Okay I know this one looks a little blank right now. But eventually it will look like this:
I like to an include an overview of the previous year’s reading statistics in my current reading journal. It reminds me what where the gaps are in my reading when it comes to reading diversely across genre and authors. Plus it’s just a visually pleasing spread and it always feels like a good way to set the mood for the new reading year.
2024 Books Read
This spread, inspired by Araya of @papayareads, is a dutch door spread to paste covers of all of my reads throughout the year. This was one of my favorite and most helpful spreads in 2023. It’s such a quick and easy way to see what you have read so far. I also use these 5-star stickers from Alicia Marks It to fill in my star rating for the book.
I did include 64 spaces in this spread this year just like I did for 2023. I did end up reading 67 books in 2023, so I’m not sure if 64 will be enough for 2024. Between moving overseas with 3 pets while 6 months pregnant and having my rainbow baby, I’m thinking 64 will be fine. If not, I can always add in a tip-in if I need more spaces.
Reading Bingo
While I don’t usually participate in many reading challenges, I do like to challenge myself a little with a reading bingo spread. I do a 5×5 square with a free space in the middle, and fill out the other boxes with different prompts like a book on writing, and ace main character, men loving men romance etc.
I always try to get a blackout bingo because that’s just who I am, but I’ve yet to complete every
prompt I come up with in a single year. Maybe that will change this year, who knows! If not, that’s okay. It still pushes me to push the limits of what I normally read and that, in my opinion, is the whole point.
The Diverse Baseline Reading Challenge
Okay, I know I just said I don’t do many challenges. But this challenge put together by @themargherita.s & @bookish.millenial on Instagram was TOO GOOD to pass up!
The goal of the challenge is pretty simple: make sure you are intentionally reading books from authors of various ethnicities, sexualities, genders, etc.
Of course I had to make a spread laying out each of the 3 prompts
for each month. I also started penciling in some of the books I already have on my TBR/shelf that fit each prompt.
If you’d like more information in this challenge or would like to participate, you can check out more information here.
Books by Genre Tracker
This is always one of my most popular spreads on Instagram! It’s a standard bookshelf tracking spread like you might see on Bookstagram, but I use it to track which genres I read each year.
Once I finish a book, I use the color key to find the color for said genre, color in the spine, and write the title along the spine.
While it does take a while to set-up, the result at the end of the year is totally worth it.
Format and Publication Year Tracker
I use this spread to track how many books I read of each format (audiobook, e-book, or print). I also color-code these columns so I can see at a glance what year the books were published.
My only regret with this spread is I wish I would have made the print column not centered – I ended up running out of room in 2023 and had to squeeze in a second column next to it! Hopefully with the extra space this year, I won’t run into that issue.
Reading Goal Tracker
I think everyone on Bookstagram/BookTok probably sets reading goals for themselves these days, and I’m no exception! While the number of books you read in a year really doesn’t mean anything, it can be fun to try to hit a certain number each month/year.
I have kept my reading goal the same at 52 books for the last 4 years, despite the number of
books I read each year gradually increasing (53 in 2021, 57 in 2022, and 67 in 2023). It feels like a number that’s achievable without putting too much pressure on myself, as I want to focus more on quality and reading diversely and widely more so than the actual number I read.
That being said, I do have 70 available squares in this spread for this year. The 64 for 2023 was just barely not enough, so I think 70 gives me that extra wiggle room. I’m also color-coding this spread by month, just like last year, so I can see at a glance how many books I read each month.
Btw, if we’re not friends on there already, add me on Goodreads & Storygraph!
2024 Favorite Reads
I subbed out this spread in place of my Hall of Fame spread from 2023. It’s hard for me to pick a single book I loved most for each month, as some books I read several I loved and some months I don’t have any.
Having a more general space where I can put books that I really enjoyed throughout the year feels like this feels more feasible for me personally.
Yearly Reading Stats at a Glance
Rachel of @alltheradreads inspired this spread, which is a yearly overview of my reading statistics for each month. Tracking my statistics monthly has helped keep me accountable to some of my reading goals much more so than waiting until the end of the year to tally everything up. This spread is a quick and concise visual of all of the stats I care about compiled in one place.
The stats I’m tracking:
- number of books read
- number of pages read
- hours listened
- books I read that I already owned
- new purchases I read
- library books I read
- books with BiPOC rep
- books with queer rep
- e-books read
- audio books read
- physical books read
- fiction books read
- non-fiction books read
- re-reads
Library Savings
This spread is pretty straight forward. I list all of the books I read through the library each month, and I total the retail cost of each book. At the end of each month and the year I total up how much money I have saved. It’s so cool to see just how much money I save by supporting my local libraries!
Read What You Own
I know a lot of us bookworms have goals of prioritizing reading the books we already own before we acquire more. I’m no different! This spread is to list all of the books I own in every format so I can track how many I read throughout the year that I already owned.
This is especially helpful for my digital books, since they’re not always right in front of me like my physical books are.
Reading Journal Spreads I Left Out for 2024
- Hall of Fame — See “2024 Favorite Reads” section above for explanation
- Book Acquisition – I kind of got lazy with this and just stopped. While I do want to track this information somewhere, I think I will probably keep a tab in my reading statistics excel spreadsheet instead of logging it manually.
- Book Log – This one just felt useless to me by the end of the quarter. My 2023 Books Read pages where I keep the book covers and star rating of every book felt more efficient. All of the other information in this spread I have in the individual review spreads for each book if I really need it.
- DNF Log – Again, I just got lazy and stopped using it. I do think this one is interesting to track, but my issue is I’m never sure which books to count as DNF. Sometimes I “shop” around books and read the first 30 pages or so before I commit, so do I include those books I kind of started by not really? This is something I might also try to incorporate into my excel spreadsheet.
- Genre-Specific TBR — While this spread was really aesthetically pleasing to look at, it was kind of a pain to make. And made my journal extra thick! My TBR is constantly evolving and I never find myself updated any physical TBR, so this one just kind of fell by the wayside as well.
2024 Reading Journal Set-up - Flip Through Video
Happy planning, and happy new year!
And that concludes my reading journal set-up for 2024! Keep an eye out on my blog and socials for more posts featuring my filled in spreads from 2023 to see how my reading journal changes and evolves throughout the year.
