Craft & workInnerholm+

A reading journal

Keep the passages, and what they stirred.

Keep the passages worth keeping, and what they argued with in you. Part commonplace book, part record of who you were when you read it. The margin notes, gathered in one place.

Begin your journal

Rated and shelved

The year's reading comes to a row of covers and a score beside each one. The three paragraphs that changed something are still inside them.

The passages kept

The lines copied out, what you thought underneath them, the date on top. Search a phrase five years on and the context comes with it.

The blank page

Reading logs turn into lists of titles, and a list of titles tells you nothing five years on. What you copied out, what you argued with, and what was happening in your life that week is the part worth keeping.

What it looks like

A reading journal in Innerholm, open at an empty page on its own paper, with the edition's opening prompt set faintly on it.
How it opens. The prompt is furniture rather than a form: write past it, answer it, or ignore it entirely.
A reading journal in Innerholm with an entry written on it, dated, above the page footer.
The same page with a few minutes in it. The date, the paper, and the footer are the edition's own.
A reading journal in Innerholm in dark mode, the same written entry on the edition's night paper.
At night. Every edition has a night stock, chosen so the ink stays readable rather than dimmed.

How to start a reading journal

  1. Copy the passage out

    By hand or typed. The copying is where the reading slows down enough to stick.

  2. Answer one question underneath it

    What made you stop there, or what you disagree with. Two sentences is enough.

  3. Write the verdict a day late

    What you think at the last page and what you think the next morning are different, and the second one is truer.

What this journal opens with

  • A passage worth keeping?
  • What did it argue with, in you?

A quiet start, never a form. Write past the prompt, ignore it, or make the page your own. The journal holds the shape; the words are yours.

Reading Journal Prompts

A reading journal is worth keeping when it records the reader as well as the book. What you copied out, what you argued with, and what was going on in your life the week you read it are the three things you will not be able to reconstruct later.

  • What passage did you stop at, and what made you stop?
  • What is this book arguing, and do you believe it yet?
  • What does the writer do with sentences that you would like to steal?
  • Which character are you defending, and which are you unfairly against?
  • What does this remind you of, from your own life or another book?

All reading journal prompts →

Private like a notebook

No ads. No trackers. Nothing trains on what you write. Search across years, sync between your devices, and export everything as Markdown or Day One whenever you like. How privacy works →

Part of Innerholm+. A good paper journal costs $30 to $40, for one chapter. Plus opens every edition for $40 a year, or $5 a month, and the free editions stay free because Plus pays for them.

More in craft & work

WorkGarden
Free prompts

Twelve reading journal prompts.

Enter your email and I'll send the twelve prompts, then two short notes to help you begin, and the one note saying Innerholm is open. After that, about one letter a month. One click stops all of it.

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